The Violinist

One day in the dingy New York underground. A lone busker, dressed in jeans and talked walked and set up his gear. He placed down his old shabby violin case and took out his precious possession to start and play.

He began playing, in anticipation of the passers by. Playing for the passion of playing, playing for someone who may appreciate. People walked by. After the 15 minues he had collected a few small coins a the moments notice of a couple of people. In the next 15 minutes, a parent with her unassuming child walked through. The child listened and was caught up, they wanted to stop. The parent, stressed by the fact she was running late and had a board meeting pulled the kid by her hands, tearing the kid from the magnetic hold of the music.

Other uassuming kids tried to stop their parents from filling their daily working grind. They wanted to listen to what impacted their imaginations, that made them dance, rather than pound the pave way with their busy overworked parents.

At the end of the 45, the man had collected 35 dollars and 7 steers from individuals.

This man was Joshua Bell, an award winning violinist, who playing one of his most celebrated pieces.

How often do we miss the beautiful because we are focused on the mundane?

How often do we miss focusing on what is beautiful because we fail to stop and listen?

H.T: Rob Bell

Ben Thirkell White - speaker series

Join Us 8PM Monday, 20 JULY @ the Ramsey House (located at 8 Kelburn Parade) to hear the first speaker, Ben Thirkell-White as he helps us enter into the conversation of poverty and development. Ben Thirkell-White is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations at Victoria. His research is about development finance, with a particular focus on the politics of World Bank and IMF policy. He has written one book about the IMF and Southeast Asia and is just completing another about the international politics of poverty policy. He’s done a little volunteer work on development projects in Southern Africa and has been teaching development for over ten years.

For more information, check out The Ladder Project

The Ladder Project - Speaker Series

The Ladder Project Speaker series is all go - these are being help at Ramsey House, 8 Kelburn Parade Wellington at 8 pm (except for Andew McGregor, which will start at 7.30 that night.)

The Dates and Speakers are:

Monday, July 20
Ben Thirkell-White; Academic Staff, School of History, Philosophy, Political Science and International Relations, Humanities and Social Sciences (yeah don't know if we need all that)
Speaking on poverty & development.

Monday, August 17
Carla Bently; Community Trust worker, development reseracher.
Speaking on the history of poverty in Southeast Asia.

Monday, September 21
Andrew McGregor; Senior Lecturer, School of Geography, Environment and Earth Sciences; just published book on Development in Asia
Speaking on the cultural stories in Southeast Asia.

Monday, October 19
Paul Vink; Developer, Investor.
Sspeaking on his practices and workshop for us to work on our project.

More to come...

The Ladder Part 2- Follow our Journey

Me and a group of co-conspirators have a project that we would like you to join - its called the Ladder. We are aiming to attack poverty in Southeast Asia (Defined as India, Bangladesh, Thailand, Mayanmar/Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Philippines and Indonesia). After working with poor and abandoned kids in an orphanage outside Addis Ababa for three months, Demelza Woolston came back to New Zealand exhausted but inspired. Her stories, told via blog and Mosaic Community shared meals combined with Mosaic’s own ethics pushed us to start a process of discovery and response in the area of poverty, orphaning, and people trafficking.

Our aim is that our group can find the best solution to poverty. We are inspired by movements such as Toms Shoes and the Clapham Sect.

Join us as we journey. We will be holding a speakers series in the next semester at Victoria University.

Take up the challenge: Be the Change in this world

The Ladder

The Ladder is a project of a group of Wellington friends who were inspired by a fellow sojourner who went to ethiopia to serve orphan kids for three months. The stories could not be ignored, we have been spurred into a need for action, because we hear the cries of humanity. You can follow our journey of discovery, action and formation at the Ladder.

The story we find ourselves

The story of humanity is fraught, we live in a world where hopelessness seems to overpower light, where pain seems to overpower joy. We understand that a story has been playing out for generations, but we see hope, a light over the horizon. We want to be part of bringing hope, bringing life to our world.

Follow the journey...

Response to Mark Sayers

I posted Mark Sayers blog yesterday on the Missional movement and where we are at with the whole emerging missional church.

My Journey to the emerging missional church movement

I have personally been on the journey into the missional church since 2005. I went through a period of time looking at the way I was living and realising that it was not what I thought it was. I realised I was basically a hyprocrite putting up visades and living a double life. I realised that during this time I wasn't following the basic creeds of Christ, but living in a system that was focused on keeping myself safe and happy without needing to change and grow.

During this time I basically dismantled what I knew about God, the Church, and living the christian life. This was done at the same time as doing study of Jesus and Paul at university.

The first person I was introduced within the emerging missional church was the controversial figure of Mr Brian McClaren - reading through his book generous orthodoxy - this book introduced me to ideas that were seen as dangerous in communities that saw black and white as the ideal.

I spent a lot of the next year thinking about what it meant to be a christian, trying to figure it out on my own accord - and with some help from others. I became quite disconnected from what I communities I once found safety and found a home (this wasn't the fault of the communities - but a result of me stepping back and questioning much of what I had once thought was the only way to do things.)

During this time I was introduced to Neo-calvinist Mark Driscoll. I have always had a love-hate relationship with Driscoll. I respect his stand and that he wont budge but disagree with him on a number of issues. I respect Mark Driscoll because he puts his money (and his churches money) where his mouth is and is developing churches. I don't think his model is the only way to do church - but see that the Acts 29 movement is going to have a big impact on the Church. I

I have also spent a lot of time being influence by the Neo-Monastics - I love the Neo-Monastics - again they sincerely put thier money where thier mouth is and are doing a lot of good around the world. One thing I find though with Neo-Monastics is that they are highly idealistic - because they are prophetic in nature they can be quite hard to deal with if you are a middle class christian. They often get ridden of as not understanding the complexities of life and are seen as needing to grow up and get a real job.

But I think Neo-Monastics have real guts. Living in community as they do is hard going and challenging. I have good freinds within monastic communities and think they are a healthy aspect of the church. Plus I was quite close to wanting to get involved in Urban vision for a while.

I was introduced to the Neo-Missiologists by a freind of mine Mike Brantley in the states. The whole story of my journey has been about distilling the Christian faith back to the essentials - that is that we are to be spurred into mission by love, living by faith and being a force of hope in a broken and desperate world. This has shaped my view that structure doesn't matter - all that matters is the message of the Gospel - and that is simple - God is missional - he loves and wants to restore relationship with his creation. He showed his love by sending his son to earth, to show a new way of living, a whole way of living, then his son went against evil, was sent to death on a roman cross, the rose again in victory over sin and death. Through because of this we can live healed lives.

Neo-Missiologists way is simple - boiling it down to bear essentials - its about living in proximaty with broken people, being a presence of hope and love like Jesus was and proclaiming that love by our words and deeds. I would probrably say that I'm closest to this school of thought.

I have a lot of time for the blenders - these guys are attually pretty amazing. They have alot of patience with a whole lot of people who have differing opinions. Erwin McManus has an awesome ability to view future trends and develop healthy community, and this has been shown by Mosaic LA. Dan Kimball is a traditional evangelical but has such a heart for reaching the lost in ways that people can understand - and is able to communicate these ways.

How is the emerging missional church shaping up in New Zealand

The emerging missional church is still small and only taking shape in New Zealand and because of this isn't as fractured as in the states. My main concern is to see the Church as an agent of hope in New Zealand, showing people that God cares for them.

The state of the emerging mission church movement... oh movements!

This is a cool post from Mark Sayers - If I get time I will comment on it.

I just finished reading Alistair McGrath’s fantastic history of protestantism Christianity’s Dangerous Idea. It’s interesting how when the Reformation began, Protestantism united itself against what it saw as its binary opposite, Catholicism, but as time passed, Protestantism began to split into various movements and factions (eg Calvinist, Anabaptist, Anglican, Congregationalist etc), overtime these groups began to define themselves against each other rather than against the perceived enemy of the time, Rome.

The history of protestantism is a classic example of movement dynamics. Dissatisfaction creates a ground swell of support against a perceived problem, injustice or enemy. This ground swell coalesces into a movement; at first the movement’s energy and internal dialogue is centered around defining itself against the common enemy. But then as time passes the internal dialogue of the movement begins to shift away from ‘defining against’ to ‘defining itself’. Then the conversation changes and people inside the solidfying movement begin to discover that although they are united in their distaste of their ‘enemy’ there is much that they disagree with each other over. Then tensions and differences arise, fractures are followed by factions, and the new movement breaks up. (For another historical example of this check out the French revolution.)

The emerging missional church seems to be following a very similar path, having seemingly fractured into multiple movements. In the early days it could define itself against the perceived enemy ‘the mainstream church”.The problem was that whilst everyone agreed that something new and different must be birthed that is in contrast to the ‘mainstream church’, many had differeing definitions of what ‘mainstream church’ was. For some it was large mega churches who had seemed to have capitulated to consumer culture, for others it was irrelevant, overly traditional mainline churches, for others it was churches that were too theologically conservative, but others were rebelling against what they saw as a mainstream church that was made impotent by liberal theology. Some saw the task as being centered around creating a contextually appropriate church for post-modern people in contrast to the ‘mainstream church’ which was perceived as being too closely wedded to ‘modernity’.

Many in the United States saw the enemy as the conservative Evangelical ‘religious right’, whereas some in the UK saw themselves creating something fresh and culturally relevant in contrast to the perceived irrelevance of many Anglican parishes. For some the problem with mainstream church was it’s politics, for others it was a lack of genuine mission. So as time went on and as conversations went deeper, many in the emerging missional movement found that they were more divided than they realised. For a while a sense of tribalism and common cultural interests seemed to hold these divisions at bay. But then things started to get weirder as something unexpected happened. Not all, but many institutions, leaders, and churches that had been labelled ‘mainstream church’ by the new movement began to listen to, converse with and imitate the emerging missional movement.

Justice went from being a sidelined issue to one of the hottest causes in many mainstream churches. Books like Blue like Jazz , the Shack and The Irresistible Revolution, which most likely if had been released ten or even five years earlier, would have only been read by a small amount of readers within the emerging missional movement, began to sell by the container ship load, and most of the readers were from ‘outside’ the movement. The line between mainstream church and the emerging missional church had become very blurred.

Inevitably the movement began to fracture and I believe now has broken up into a number of mini movements. Here is my rudimentary attempt to name and describe some of them.

Neo-Anabaptists: Some have called this movement the new monastics, which is quite a helpful term, but I think that a more accurate description would be Neo-Anabaptists, as this group is shaped by the ethos of the Anabaptist movement. This movement tends to be pacifist, favours incarnational living amongst the urban poor, and has a strong distrust of power, sees contemporary Western Culture and Society as being controlled by “Empire” and thus favours an approach of prophetic action by small grassroots Christian communities.I would also place in this group the growing Christian-Anarchist movement in Australia and New Zealand. This group tends also to be strongly influenced by the Catholic Worker Movement started by Dorothy Day. A key leader in this movement would be Shane Claibourne. Key books The Irresistible Revolution. The New Conspirators by Tom Sine.

Neo- Calvinists: This group puts an emerging spin on classic Calvinism. This group views reformed theology as way out of the morally relevatist mess created by postmodernity. Whereas aditional Reformed theology viewed gifts of the spirit with suspicion, the new calvinism tends to have a charismatic edge. The neo-Calvinists also in contrast to early Calvinism, place a high emphasis on mission, and thus have begun a number of church planting efforts. Key Leaders in this movement, Mark Driscoll, Tim Keller.

Neo-Missiologists: This group are in many ways the heirs to the church growth movement created by Donald McGavern, a returned missionary who advocated a missional approach to the West. However whereas church growth was influenced by the mechanistic leadership, marketing and organising techniques of the corporate world, the new missiologists borrow instead from the organic models found in nature. Building on the work of Christian Schwarz this group favours small simple highly reproducible forms of church. This group is also highly influenced by the missiology of Leslie Newbiggin and Paul Hiebert and favours an incarnational mode of church, that is not ‘attractional’ but rather missional. This group also borrows some of its eccleisiology from House Church theorists and practitioners such as Robert Banks and Wolfgang Simson. Thus many label this movement ‘missional’. Key leaders Neil Cole and Wolfgang Simpson and Frank Viola. Key books the Forgotten Ways, Pagan Christianity and The Organic Church.

Neo-Clapham’s: A strange name yes but I think a descriptive one as this group tends to be influenced by the ideas of William Wilberforce and the Clapham Sect. Whilst this movement is technically not concerend with ‘church’, one cannot underestimate its effect upon the contemporary church, and the lives of christian young adults. Whilst just as passionate about justice as the Neo-Anabaptists, the Neo-Clapham’s tend to take a very different approach. Whereas the Neo-Anabaptists tend to favour an approach which is local, grassroots and suspicious of larger institutions, the Neo-Clapham’s take an approach that is global, large scale and campaign driven.In contrast to the Neo-Anabaptist’s, this group are less suspicious of power and thus work closely or within corporations, governments, the Entertainment industry, NGO’s and denominations. Much of the energy of the Neo-Clapham’s can be found in various movements such as Make Poverty History, Fair Trade, Human Trafficking, Blood Chocolate, and so on. Key Leaders Jim Wallis, Tim Costello, Bono, Steve Chalke, David Batstone.

Digital Pentecostals: This movement is a recent development within Pentecostalism in the West, specifically developing out of Australia. While Pentecostalism classically was defined by outward expressions of response to the Holy Spirit, the digital pentecostals create experiential spaces through cutting edge media and technologies in which participants can respond to the Holy Spirit. This group attempt to reach out to postmodern culture by creating large church worship experiences which are highly experiential and tech savvy thus being attractive to postmodern tech savvy, experiential Gen Y’s. Many Digital Pentecostals has eschewed the ‘prosperity theology’ of their parents and instead are highly influenced by or part of the Neo-Clapham movement. In many ways this the second generation of Gen Y kids who have come of age being influenced by Hillsong. Key Leaders Joel Houston, Judah Smith. This group would not have ever seen itself as part of the emerging missional journey at any stage, but never the less is an interesting response to post-Christian culture.

Neo-Liberals: Many who began in the Emerging Church have taken the journey further and embraced a kind of 2oth century liberalism with an emerging spin. In an attempt to reject what was seen as the cultural captivity of evangelicalism, many have questioned a number of key components of evangelical life and theology and found themselves swimming in for want of a better term ’soft liberalism’. Whereas traditional liberalism was born out of an attempt to create a theology that fit with modern sensibilities, the Ne-liberals find themselves creating a new theology in response to the post-modern context. Interestingly this group seems to be finding more and more in common with mainline liberal Churches in the United States than they do with Evangelicals. Critics would place some of the voices within the ‘Emergent” camp here.

Blenders: This group would have placed themselves in the emerging church camp five years ago, but in response to the move away from evangelical theology by many of their former travellers (the Neo-Liberals) they have re-affirmed their commitment to evangelical theology. This group also seems to be questioning some of the assumptions of the Neo-Missiologists and are attempting to blend a missional approach, whilst still affirming some elements of the attractional mode of church, hence the term blenders.Key leaders Erwin McManus, Dan Kimball.

Obviously there is much cross-pollination between these groups. As well as many problems with my analysis. I am sure that there are more that I could come up with, maybe you can think of some too.

Comfort and Selfishnes

Recently I had a mate come to stay for a week and a half in my room. He's a great guy who's just joined Urban Vision* for the year. I thought it would be cool to offer some hospitality to a mate of mine. What I found surprising to me was my reaction to him being here.

I had feelings of protection for "my space", "my stuff" etc. I wanted to control the environment and make it work out for me the most. There was alot of selfishness running through me as I tried to maintain the order in my life that I had created.

As I thought about this, I realised again how important our space is in New Zealand culture, this is because New Zealand is pretty unpopulated space (created through our isolation on the southern corner of the Pacific Ocean.) I have my own space in a flat, which is frankly really really large, and I do not use all of it at all. But I feel I have a right to the space because I have had a busy day at work to get out of.

I realised how much we care about space and take it for granted, and how protective New Zealanders are of thier space. I live in a room that would fit 5 or 6 families in a slum in india, and I find it hard to share it with one other person. I have realised how important it is to be hospitable, and need to learn how to be truly hospitable to people in my life.

*Urban Vision are a missional order to the urban poor in Wellington.

Google Meme

Since I am bored, but not tired enough to go to sleep, I thought I would fill in this google meme.

Google your full first name and the word “needs” like this - “Nathanael needs” - and then post the first 10 things that Google finds.

Nathanael needs a Wikipedia Page

Nathanael needs to meet a westie

Nathanael needs a disciple

Nathanael needs a novelist

Nathanael needs a web user interaction designer

Nathanael needs a flicker photostream

Nathanael needs a revolutionary army

Nathanael needs a university lecturer

Nathanael needs a diary on his life

Nathanael needs a wasteland of contradictions

I tag Joshua, Sym, Andrew Watson, Justin Blass and Benn Crawford.

Tired, blistered days

I fulfilled one of my goals for the year, to complete a half Marathon. I completed it in 2 hours and 15 Minutes. My friend Lynda knew that I wanted to do a half marathon and hunted out one. We ran from Frank Kitts park to Shelly Bay and back to Kirbirnie park.

I have to say that it was a beautiful day, and I got focused on taking in the beauty of the Wellington more than I did focus on taking in a reasonable amount of air.

One of my aims this year is to work on my physical fitness. At the end of last year I noticed that I was becoming more seditary, yet still eathing alot of food. I was having nightmares every time I walked past someone who was overweight in town and worrying about the fact that I could turn out to be a fat thirty year old who would be working himself to an early grave. I wanted more energy and to be physically stronger and healthier. I started going to the gym and working out and have seen the results both in my physical health, but also in helping me to become more focused in the things that I do.

I managed to get myself huge blisters on the bottom of my feet and impressed the nurse who said she had seen very few blisters like the ones I have! I am walking around the flat feeling stiff and in pain, but also feeling proud that I managed to do the run.

Today was terrifying for me, I took a risk to see if I could sustain a run for 21 Km's and I did it. I want to do better than this next time, get fitter and faster. I see this as important to how I live.

XXX Church "Sin City Saviors"

I've talked about XXXchurch before. This group is truly being missional in the context of Los Vegas, Nevada. These guys are hard-hitting, yet loving. They have a vision of setting up a church on the strip, which can be supported at www.xxxchurch.org.

These people and many others are taking risks, going into the areas which are dark, dangerous and scary and sharing the gospel of Jesus Christ. They come into promiximaty and proclaim Jesus to those who may have never know the gospel

Giving to Live

I posted this on Capital Mosaics website this week. Read and see what you think

There is a lake in the middle of a desert. You would think that it would be the source of life for all that surrounds it, but there is nothing there.

The environment is bland; the lake has no fish at all.

It is dead.

The place is called the Dead Sea.

The Dead Sea’s lack of life is brought on by one simple fact - the water does not flow out. With this, all the natural sediments that would normally give life build up to a level which is literally toxic, doing the complete opposite to what is intended.

Humanity is like this too. If we live for our selfish desires and do not give to something more than ourselves we become toxic. We may live, but many times the life we live is unhealthy, and it isn’t at maximum drive and energy.

The healthy giver is then like a river that flows out and gives life to those around it. It gives energy to the surrounding valleys. It does not stagnant. The healthy giver realises that they have a bigger purpose. Their streams bring life and health to those around. As we practice giving, we practice living as healthier people.

Adventures in the South Island

I have been taking a bit of a break down in the South Island, spending four days in Nelson, and three nights in Kaikoura. Yesterday I went whale watching and today I went Dolphin watching. Yesterday I managed to see three Sprem Whales. These whales are the largest of the tooth whale family and are the fourth largest whale species on the planet. They are bigger in length than a Brontosaurus. They are the largest predator on the planet.

The Highlight of my trip was getting to see the acrobatic Dusky dolphin today. On our tour we managed to meet a pod of 15o or so Dusky Dolpins. I managed to catch a few good shots of these awesome creatures on my trip.

For me the highlight of the trip was seeing the dolphins. I have been fascinated with Dolphin and Whales all my life. This is the first (and maybe only) time I have been able to see these animals up-close. Still havn't been swimming with dolphins, but maybe next time.

Pioneers vs Townspeople

Heres some good thoughts on Pioneer Theology verses Townspeople Theology from Mike Brantley, a practitioner of Pioneer theology living in New Orleans.. As a christian who wants to reach the 85% of people that the traditional church (including mainline, traditional, evangelical, charismatic and penticostal churches) do not reach.

Subjects: • Subject theology: wants it settled, organized, safe.
• Subject churches are in the town square, the courthouse framing and mandating life in the town. It hosts the trials, taxes collected, symbol of stability.
• God in Subject theology, he is the royal, the aristocrat, the magistrate, the aristocrat…dictating. He is ordered and not seen, predictable. He is dressed like coronation day. In some denominational towns. Scotch is replaced by soda, cigars by gum. Peace and quiet are his concerns.
• His sheriff is sent to check up on pioneers riding in. Jesus is the sheriff. He is sent by the aristocrat with a white suit of armor, drinks milk, out draws the baddies. He determines the jailed.
• The Holy Spirit is a pub girl. Her job is comfort. Her job is helping when they are lonely, tickles them under the chin. She squeals to the sheriff when things go bad. Whisky is non-alcoholic.
• The Christian is the subject, fears the unknown and open. Wants to stay in good stead with the lord mayor and avoids the Sheriff. He wants peace, order. Keeps his money in the bank. He stays in the shade and never misses the ice cream social.
• Faith is the safety of the town, obeying the laws. Sin is breaking one of the towns laws.
• The clergy is the banker. He is respected and hides his gun. He has a lot in common with the sheriff.

When we wait in the town, do not go out and share the gospel with those outside the walls of the town, we lose our potency. We are called to be sojourners, journeying with those who do not know Christ, out in thier natural habitat. We are called to be ambassadors to a foreign land, that foreign land are the places that we see as unsafe, the wildernesses. They are naturally dangerous, hold many traps and snares, but we go in the faith that God will keep us safe.

• Pioneer theology: live the strange gift of life, a wild adventure to uncharted land. In Pioneer theology is not the church in the town square, but a covered wagon, but scarred, bandaged, where the action is, ready to move, doesn’t glorify it’s past. It is about exploring.
• God in pioneer theology he is the captain on the explorer ship, the rough and hard one who gets in the water and in the mud, keeps it going, slugs the soft. His fist is an expression of His concern.
• Jesus is the scout or the wild one who climbs the rigging to the crow’s nest – dangerous, solo, there in the storm and the dark. He is out ahead showing the dangers, suffers the hardships, feared by the subjects. He shows concern and sees the future. He is willing to go ahead alone, and calls others to risk the same. He carries a cutlass and a gun, loaded all the time.
• The Spirit is the hunter, unpredictable. He scares the subjects. He rides into town just to shake up the subjects, can’t wait to get back out to sea, to the new lands.
• The Christian is the pioneer, ready for the new. He is tough. He knows how to use a gun. He tries to tell the subjects back home about life on the trail.
• Faith is the spirit of adventure – to risk. It is obedience to the restless voice of the captain explorer.
• Sin is wanting to turn back.
• The clergy is the one who serves what the hunter provides, ready when the trail boss calls, just a pioneer who learned to cook. He serves the wagon train.

I have been learning this last year what it means to be a pioneer, the country is unchartered, the road is dangerous, but it is rewarding.

The Walk

Me and a couple of others from Mosaic wrote this poem/psalm a few weeks back at MCG, it explains part of the faith journey that some of us have been going on, we need people to walk with us, even when we are the most down, lost, confused. When we trek together with others who are follows, we find wholeness, we find answers and healing.

I stood in the desert.I was parched, I was thirsty.

Surrounded by others, as dry as each other.
We had settled by an Oasis
that had since dried up.

The thirst told me that water was out there over the horizon.
Some of us left.
I followed, convinced.
Searching for something better, something more.
We met many along the way.
Some septics, scoffers, some full of hope.
Each of us had a different story, but a common path.

After waiting and waiting holding each other up. We have tasted the dew on the ground, seen green on the horizon.

Together we walk.
Together we walk.

You can find other poems written by Mosaic people at our website.

Communities of Brokennness

The sense of belonging flows from trust: trust is the gradual acceptance of others as they are with their gifts and their limits, each one with the call of Jesus. And this leads to the realization that the body of community is not perfectly whole and cannot be, that this is our human condition. And it is all right for us to be less than perfect.

Helping each other,growing in trust,living in thanksgiving,learning to forgive,opening up to others,welcoming them,and striving to bring peace and hope to our world.

So it is that we come to put down roots in community - not because it is perfect and wonderful, but because we believe that Jesus called us together. It is where we belong and are called to grow and to serve.

Jean Vanier from The Broken

Kingdom Grace

What are you doing this saturday?

Rediscovering Jesus - Hirsh and Frost

This comes from the introduction of Alan Hirsh and Michael Frost's upcoming book Re: Jesus

Surely the challenge for the church today is to be taken captive by the agenda of Jesus, rather than seeking to mold him to fit our agendas, no matter how noble they might be. We acknowledge that we can never truly claim to know him completely. We all bring our biases to the task. But we believe it is inherent in the faith to keep trying and to never give up on this holy quest. The challenge before us is to let Jesus be Jesus and to allow ourselves to be caught up in his extraordinary mission for the world.

Whether it is the grand ecclesiastical project of the institutionalchurches, epitomized by the ostentatious excess of the Vatican, or the tawdry grab for the hearts and minds of the aspirational middle class by prosperity style Pentecostalism, the Christian movement has been subverted. Like a forgotten nativity scene in a shopping mall dominated by Santa Claus, reindeer,elves, Disney characters, tinsel, baubles, and fake snow, the biblical Jesus is hard to find. But Jesus is still calling us to come and join him in a far more reckless and exciting adventure than that of mere church attendance.

When allowed to be as he appears in the pages of Scripture, Jesus will not lead us to hatred, violence, greed, excess, earthly power, or material wealth. Instead, he will call us to a genuinely biblical and existential faith that believes in him, not simply believing in belief, as in many expressions of evangelicalism. It requires an ongoing encounter with Jesus. This will raise issues in the ways of knowing that bring about true spiritual transformation.

Bye Bye Juicey

Juicey (Justin and Lacey) have left New Zealand to go back home to America for three months. These two have been a real blessing for Mosaic. They play an integral part to the community that is Mosaic. I got to say, even though they are only going to be gone for three months. I am really going to miss having them around.

The first time I met Justin and Lacey, they called me Daniel, and brought me home. I failed to correct them that my name was Nathanael partly out of politeness and the fact that I worried that if I corrected them they might not bring me back to my house! We have had many awesome times, particularly early on, where I was involved in long drawn out counselling sessions over numerous issues with them.

Lacey is a key person within Mosaic, her warmth and friendship has been a key for bringing along people to connect to Mosaic. Me and Justin have spent hours having indepth theological discussions and managed to explain some of N.T’s theology in an hour, which was impressive.

Journeying with these Juicey has been cool, I can’t wait till next year and cooking up some great ideas for how to serve Wellington, serve students and share Christ with those who come across the Mosaic.

Intentionality

“Live; I wanna live inspired.Die; I wanna die for something higher than myself.Live and die for anyone else.The more I live I see, this life's not about me.”
Anberlin - Burn out Brighter


We can either live a life where we go through the motions, where we live and are pushed by external forces, or we can live for a bigger ideal, something that forces us to live beyond ourselves. This something shapes us, moulds us and defines us.

As I look to the past and my experiences of the years, I know that at moments I have been shaped by outward pressures. The world of religiosity, in which you had to do certain things, or you felt you had to believe things to be holy and focused. Much of this was self-imposed. I believed it was true because that was what I thought was good and great.

I have seen this recently, sincere, zealous young people who are Christians desire to be in “Ministry.” I know I was in this same position a while back too. But I have come to realise how dualistic this thinking is. “Ministry” is seen as serving your local church, in a position of responsibility, usually for the benefit of the institution, either in its status, or serving people within its wall. While true ministry is about proclaiming the kingdom, in our day to day lives – our homes, our workplaces, the church community we are involved in.

I believe wholeheartedly that the job I work in is part of extending the kingdom. I believe that job of restoration and justice is kingdom work. I do my work with the intention of forming relationships that go deeper than that.

In our lives we get to live for something bigger than ourselves, something that can envelop us, transform is. That bigger thing I believe is “Love”. A love self-sacrificing. It calls us to see the world differently. This best example of this love was shown God sent his son to earth, to live as a human, and die on a Cross so that we could live new transformed lives. He was broken so we could be made whole, so that the world could be restored, so injustice could be ended and justice could reign and the oppressed set free

I want to live with intention. God has put me on this earth to be his servant, bringing about justice, showing people Gods character, sharing my life with those around me.

Mosaic - A year on

Life a year on

About a year ago, I made a decision, I walked into a Café at 6.00 on a Sunday night to meet a group of people doing something different, something new. I had become frustrated at where I was, I needed challenge. I had a yearning that there was a great world to be discovered, to explore. The community was Mosaic. A group of 10 or so people, who are trying to figure out what it means to be Christians today. We aim to be missional in all that we do.

So what has this meant for me, what have I learned over the last year.

Intentionality

Communitas

Missional living

Hospitality

Generosity

What has happened to me on this journey:

I have detoxed from where I was;

I have learned new things about Gods character;

I am learning how important it is to be defined by God, not by stuff, by what I believe, the exterior;

I am learning that it I am responsible for my journey, I have to take self-leadershipl and

I have figured out that this journey isn’t over, its just beginning

Hopefully in the next few blogs, I will unpack a bit of what’s been going on this past year, where my thinking is, and where I need to move next. This may help people, it may not.

How was your first time

A long weekend of fun and sun!

A obligatory look at how great my long weekend was (even if it seemed to blur all into one!)

For me the long weekend started at Tulsi Indian Restuarant.

We then moved on to Buttercup, Lacey, Sussanne, Lyndsy and Kara's flat and watched "Empire Records" and "The Castle" (One of my favourite movies ever). (No photos, sorry)

We then ended up at Denny's in Porirua, the only American diner located in this South Pacific Arcapalago. (Well, maybe in Wellington.

That was one day (and night)

The next day I spent most of the day resting and relaxing (and getting beaten at cards and eating pork roast.)

On Sunday we went out to Newtown Tenpin Bowling place (cant remember the name and then went and played more cards (My card game and bowling both are something not to be desired of.)

On Monday I got up late again after another late evening, then went to meet up with my mate rich for some fun in the sun.

As you can see I still had some spring in my step.

Long time comming...

Its been a long time since I last wrote, due mainly to the fact that I have been pretty busy with work and life and all that has been going on in the world around me.

So what’s going on.

Work
Work is busy, I have the privileged of working in the deep end of one of the busiest times ever for my organisation. The organization is achieving and I am glad to be working in an area where I’m passionate about. At present I’m learning a lot about things that I need to work on. Like getting the small things right, such as grammar and apostrophes (as anyone would know these little things trip me up.) I have also learned recently that project plans may not be evil as I think they are.

Mosaic
Mosaic is a blessing, I love this community. Its also a challenge. I am realising how much I need to move forward. I have struggling with wanting to deliberate thoughts and ideas, rather than just go forward and push forward. I think I can break through this.

Mosaic continues to challenge me on my self leadership. Particularly, it makes me ask the questions, “how do I own my faith?” “How do I proclaim the Gospel in my words and deeds?”, “What is my story and how am I living out the story?” All are similar questions, but need to be answered.

Hopefully I will have some more substantial thoughts being downloaded sometime soon, controversial or not….

I'm Feeling Socially Conscious Today

Just think about it...

Mmmm... Interesting Thought

Asbo Jesus on Voting

Sycretism and Joel Osteen

I don't always agree with Mark Driscoll on all theological questions, but I think he gets it pretty right when he critiques Joel Osteen, a pastor of one of the largest churches in America. Listen to this and post your thoughts.

Lying as we "worship"

Our central lie is in the discrepancy between the language of worship and the actions of worship. We confess “Jesus is Lord” but only submit to the part of Christ’s authority that fits our grand personal designs, doesn’t cause pain, doesn’t disrupt the American dream, doesn’t draw us across ethnic and racial divisions, doesn’t add the pressure of too much guilt, doesn’t mean forgiving as we have been forgiven, doesn’t ask for more than a check to show compassion. We “sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs” expressing our desire to know Jesus, but the Jesus we want to know is the sanitized Jesus that looks a lot like us when we think we are at our best. Despite God’s Word to the contrary, we think we can say that we love God and yet hate our neighbor, neglect the widow, forget the orphan, fail to visit the prisoner, ignore the oppressed. Its the sign of disordered love. When we do this, our worship becomes a lie to God.–Mark Labberton, The Dangerous Act of Worship: Living God’s Call to Justice (Downers Grove: IVP, 2007), 71

Worship to me is one of the central aspects of the Christian faith. In its purest and truest form the Christian faith is radically and staunchy monotheistic (We beleive and worship one God.) God is jealous about being worshiped. We are to worship him and him alone, not ourselves, stuff, creation, but him along. We are also here to enact Gods righteousness, bringing about Gods kingdom on earth as in heaven. This means caring for the hungry, looking after the lonely, being there for the widow. Being passionate about ending injustice and helping the underdog. Worship is not about songs, its about the state of our heart. Desiring to honour God in every moment. Desiring to live a life that pleases God because we are bringing love joy and hope.

HT: Alan Hirsh

Heavy Metal Monk

Like everyone else...

He was like everyone else, he walked the streets like everyone else. He ate and drank, needed the basic necessities. He cried when his best mate died, he needed rest and felt an inner torment at the destiny that lay ahead of him. Yet something was different about him. He was seen as a dangerous force by the fundamentalists of his city, a challenge to their hold over the status qou. He was seen as a source of hope for the poor and the marginalised. He hung out, and served them. He was seen as a liberator and healer of the country, a revolutionary who would bring his people out of oppression. He claimed to be God, he claimed to be the Messiah the one to lead his people to freedom.


He was a young man, like everyone else. He lived in his city, worked in a job, went out for beers on the weekend with his mates. But he lived in a way that was intentional. He went out of his way at work to get to know people on their own turf. In his times out with people he would listen. He would seek to listen and bring life to those around him. He would seek to be a servant in every area. People knew something was different about him. They found that when they spent time with him, they were at ease, they found healing in their conversations with him. They longed to get to know him more, spend time with him. He was willing to give up all he could to serve them and show them a new way to live. He claimed to know God, to know the Messiah who is the way to freedom.

Australias Grand Plans - Part 2

Australias Grand Plans

The Missional Church Ethos

Missional church is a community of God’s people that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose of being an agent of God’s mission to the world. In other words, the church’s true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible. The mission of God flows directly through every believer and every community of faith that adheres to Jesus. To obstruct this is to block God’s purposes in and through his people.

Alan Hirsh, The Forgotten Ways.

Whats This Life For?

... for we all live under the reign of one king."
Creed, Whats this Life For?

Many times we feel like we walk through the motions, taking steps wondering where we are about to go next. Many of us feel like we are just existing and do not know how to move forward. We are afraid, ashamed of who we are. We are scared of letting go if our past and taking the step into something more, something bigger than ourselves. Forgetting the glorious work that God has done on the cross.

Then others of us are enslaved to a weird view of our salvation, we beleive that everything is after the fact, that since we have been "saved", there is no work to do now in the present. We have heaven coming, we don't need to worry about the present and we do not need to do anything now.

But this isn't the case. Jesus' eschatology and Pauls eschatology and indeed a Jewish view of the world never hint to this. Jesus says the the Kingdom of God is at hand. Jesus declares in his example of how we should pray,

"Our father in heaven, may tour name be kept holy.
May your kingdom come on earth as it is heaven"

Jesus' introduction to ministry started with his declaration that the Kingdom has come, the salvation has come, where he takes the scroll of Isiah and does dis exegisis on it, declaring

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, doe hw has annointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, that the blind will see, that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come."

Jesus' declaration is that the Kingdom has come, it has spiritual, emotional, and political significance to the world we live in. He declares that the broken can find healing, that the oppressed can find freedom, that Israel is to be redeemed, that the world is to be healed and redeemed.

So what does this mean for us, I don't beleive salvation means we get to live happilly in the reality that since we are saved we wait to do nothing, we are called as followers of Christ, that we are called to live in a way that declares that Jesus is Lord.

Jesus addressed, that for the kinfdom to come, there needs to be workers. He said

"The harvest is great, but the workers are few"

I do not beleive in the rapture, if it happens then I'm wrong, but I don't really think its one of the questions that matters at all to my salvation, but it matters to the way I live. People who live looking forward to being taken away forget the importance of our mission here on earth. To be agents of change and transformation. To bring the gospel to the lost. To be agents of change in our city.

I don't beleive we will ever get to an utopian ideal this side of eternity, but seeing people changed, people find wholeness, seeing cities changed (like Ninevah was in the bible in the story of Jonah, Like Jerusalem and the nation of Israel was in the story of Nehemiah) is what I look forward to.

I will end on this point, at the end of the bible, we see the fulfilment of Gods victory, the restoration of a new heaven and a new earth. God brings heaven down to earth and lives again amongst humanity. Relationship between God and his creation is restored. He reigns!

Matariki

Yesterday night at work we had a celebration of Matariki. It was a great time of feasting and celebration. We got to enjoy a whole lot a great Kai, including some great creamed Paua and Paua Fritters as a result of some hard work from some of the men of the organisation. There was a great performance by a Wellington Kapa Haka group.

Matariki is the the Maori name for the Pleiades star cluster, which consists of seven stars. This star cluster is used by the Maori people in tradition to work out when it is the best time to grow crops. Matariki in New Zealand appeared on the 13 may 2008 and the best time to have seen it was on the 31st of May.

Its rising and falling are used to declare when the New Year begins. Prior to Matariki's falling is a period of mourning and loss. This year New Zealand lost one of its great symbols of National Identity and leadership with the passing of Sir Edmund Hillary, and in Maori leadership there has also been the passing of some great Maori Kaimatua.

The time we are in now is a time for celebration and for eating and for telling the stories of the past year and looking forward to the coming year. It is a joyous seasion that we are in looking forward to the coming harvest but also the celebration of successes both in our own personal lives and in the lives of others.

So what do I need to be thankful for, what can I look forward too?

- I am thankful for successfully graduating from University last month with Honours in politics.
- I am thankful for getting a great job in a great organisation.
- I am thankful for the headway that Mosaic is making as a community and that God has lead me into this community.

So my prayer for these coming months is:

Dear God, thank you for this time of remembrance. Thank you for all that I'm learning, and thank you for the challenges that are around the corner. I pray that I will follow your heart in the way that I live. That I will passionately follow your call and mission. That I will love others and put thier concerns above my own. God I thank you that you rescued me so I could be on mission to let your kingdom come on earth and I pray that I would follow you. Lord I thank you for placing me in Wellington, I pray that I would learn to serve my city and love this city in a way that transforms it and makes it a light in the dark. I thank you for the creative vision that you have placed in this city, I thank you for the political influence you have placed in this city. Let it be used to honour your name. Let me see it honour your name.

Alive and Kicking

This post is to let you all know that I'm still alive and well and give an update of my day to day life.

Work
I have just started work in my first permanent job in a Government department here in Wellington. I am really enjoying the variety, also know that I'm having to learn a whole lot more about Government, working with people and everything else. It is really exciting work and I can't beleive that I'm where I am now.

What am I reading
I've just started reading the Presidents by Stephen Grauband, this book goes through from the Presidency of Theodore Roosevelt to George W.Bush. I have just started it, so I will be preoccupied with it for a while yet (especially since I don't seem to have much time. I'm enjoying it, especially with the American election up and coming (Congratulations Obama!) It brings me back to my old politics days!

Why Did the Emergent Chicken Cross the Road?

From Michael Kruse

Why did the Emergent Chicken cross the road? Here are my top ten reasons in no particular order:
The Chicken was drawn to the candles and incense on the other side of the road.
There was a Hauerwas discussion group at the coffee shop on the other side of the road.
The idea to cross the road emerged from the chicken’s generative cohort.
It was more “post” on the other side of the road. (i.e, postmodern, post-evangelical, post-colonial, post-institutional, post-post, etc. Pick your favorite "post.")
D. A. Carson showed up on the chicken’s side of the road.
Obama was on the other side of the road.
To demonstrate that it is more environmentally sustainable to walk across the road than to drive across the road.
Bono said crossing the road would save Africa.
The chicken was seeking change. Everything must change!
The question is merely a foundationalist modernist attempt to distill complex realities down to a single proposition in accordance with some metanarrative.

The Top 10 Worst Movies about Jesus (not including "The Passion")

As Brought to you by the Wittenburg door. Might provide you with some entertainment over the long Queens Birthday weekend.

Ht. Mike Zook

THE ROBE

This film may have been nominated for an Oscar, but so was Norbit.
Richard Burton, Shakespeare’s worst nightmare, plays Marcellus, a Roman soldier who crucifies Jesus and then wins his robe in a drunken game of dice. Since he can't put the thing up for sale on eBay, he decides to hang on to it. But instead of being the historical keepsake, bathroom rug or future dorm curtain he hoped it would be, the robe tortures him to no end. The very touch of it burns his skin and after he gets rid of it, disturbing dreams of Jesus' death and having to marry Elizabeth Taylor haunt him. The film attempts to portray the power of Jesus Christ by showing how even his outfit can kick your ass.

Widescreen Cinemascope Technicolor made the robe of Jesus look like a fuzzy-wuzzy blankie.
This was the first movie filmed in wide-screen Cinemascope, the format that was supposed to save Hollywood from the threat of television, but all it did was establish the principle that a dirty tube sock magnified a thousand times on a Technicolor screen will still look like a dirty tube sock. Everyone turns the overacting up to 11, which for Burton goes to the level of a drunken Renaissance Faire actor padding his resume.

For the role of Jesus himself, director Henry Koster decided to save money and just use his second unit director, which means the poor guy had to perform just about all of his normal duties in full costume. The studio wouldn't even let him eat in the cafeteria because they felt it was inappropriate for Jesus to be seen eating there in public. Come on, he may be the Son of Man, but that doesn't mean he never needed a Hungry Man meal.

JESUS CHRIST VAMPIRE HUNTER

There are a ton of B-movie horror flicks centered around Jesus Christ as a bad-ass spiritual hunter sent back to Earth to rid the world of demons and prevent the Second Coming, but this is definitely the best and that's not really a complement.

This cult favorite is so crammed to the brim with mixed genres that its mere stench lifts the lid off the jar and overflows with oozing mediocrity. It's a kung-fu movie. It's a splatterfilm. It's a Mexican wrestling film. It's a musical! It's a Jesus film with multiple personality disorder. And all of them are batshit insane.

JESUS, THE MINI-SERIES

It's May 1999 and it's sweeps week. All the other networks have big boffo blockbusters lined up to trick people into watching as much television as possible, but CBS executives find themselves standing out in the cold with nothing but old Murder, She Wrote and Diagnosis Murder reruns on your schedule, guaranteed to attract the oldest demographic since the Weather Channel went on the air. What do you do? Simple. You play on people's fears about the coming Year 2000 apocalypse and produce a made-for-TV Jesus biopic that’s bloodier and more over-the-top than all three of the Evil Dead films combined.

This scene of the final crucifixion features actor Jeremy Sisto being brutally nailed to the cross as he tries to convey agony by screaming the loudest of any torture victim in history. When Jesus tells his father to forgive them for they know not what they do, a grinning Livio--played by G.W. Bailey, better known as Rizzo on *M*A*S*H* and Captain Harris on Police Academy-says in his best Bond villain voice, "We know what we're doing. We're killing you." Oh snap, Jesus! You just got served.

Then in the end he comes back to life in the modern day and beams down Star Trek-style into a short-haired early-thirties guy who greets a group of schoolchildren with a warm hug and walks them out of frame, making you think Jesus suffered for two days and rose from the dead on the third so he could come back to life and babysit for us.

ZOMBIE JESUS!

If Night of the Living Dead director George Romero became a born-again Christian, got a ton of funding from a religious film studio and decided to resurrect (no pun intended) his famed zombie movie franchise for a Christian audience, this wouldn't be the movie he would make.
This little film festival puddle jumper conjectures that the reason Jesus returns from the dead is so he can feast on the brain of the living, which we're sure isn't kosher even if you kill thehuman

a certain way.

It's hard to tell from the trailer if the film is an allegorical tale of literal Biblical translation run amok or just another zombie comedy that tries to ride on the coattails of Shaun of the Dead. If it's the second, you can rest assured there won't be any "Take this and eat it, for this is my body" jokes since the film follows Return of the Living Dead zombie rules, which require zombies to eat brains only, and not Night of the Living Dead zombie rules, which allow the undead to consume the entire body.

IN SEARCH OF HISTORIC JESUS

If faux-science shows like Unsolved Mysteries and In Search Of . . . attempted to tackle the Messiah story, of course they'd have to release their merry band of over-actors to reenact the story of Jesus in ways that made you giggle as a kid in places you weren't supposed to until the pressure from your sinus would blow your brains clean out of the back of your skull.

This schlock docudrama attempted to tackle that very subject. The movie features a stuffy, glass-eyed "historian" who uses the Shroud of Turin as an excuse to research the history of Jesus Christ, complete with so much hammy acting, the film will make you want to go kosher.
Since it ran in drive-ins across the country for years, it was allowed to feature the full crucifixion experience in all of its fake gory glory. So let's do those drive-in totals. We've got two nailed wrists, one stabbed chest, spear fu, Roman fu, Jew fu, Wrath of God fu and no aardvarking. We give it zero stars.

THE PRINCE OF PEACE, a/k/a THE LAWTON STORY

Six-year-old Ginger Prince failed to become the next Shirley Temple.
Have any of you parents out there ever sat at one of your children's Sunday School Nativity pageant and thought you'd like to see your own kids acting out the birth of Jesus on the big screen? Hell no.

Despite that fact of life, that's pretty much what William “One-Shot” Beaudine did with a passion play from Lawton, Oklahoma. Beaudine got his nickname because he reputedly directed more than 350 films without ever asking for a second take. For this project, he was working for the legendary showman Kroger Babb, who specialized in traveling roadshows that would pack the local theater for three days of “educational” or “inspirational” screenings, followed by a quick exit to the next town. Beaudine and Babb took a local production and interspersed it with a film about a young girl who convinces his greedy rich uncle to see the passion play so it will open his eyes to the value of serving, not taking from, his fellow man. The acting in this thing is not only bad, but the Sooner accents were so thick that the entire film had to be redubbed because the angry mob in Jerusalem never sentenced Jesus to die by announcing "Git-r-Done!"

Babb took the film on the road and then tried to sell the audience Bibles after the screening, which wasn't very successful because the movie ran four hours. It's hard to sell Bibles to a bunch of people whose faces had melted off from boredom.

The film became an even bigger failure when it tried to launch the career of Ginger Prince, the actress who plays the little girl in the film, as an attempt to step on the pituitary gland of an aging Shirley Temple. Again, films that melt faces off of their audiences won't help your career, not even in a "so bad it's good" kind of way.

THE GOSPEL ACCORDING TO MATTHEW
Some of the world's most astute film critics and historians have lauded Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini's retelling of the Gospel of Matthew with glowing words that will never be used to describe directors like Ed Wood, Uwe Boll and the guy who made the Rollerball remake. But anyone who’s ever had to sit through it in film class, struggling with the idea of a Marxist Jesus with a homosexual subtext, will realize why Pasolini boasted about his lack of research. He basically turns the birth and resurrection of Jesus Christ into a kung-fu flick starring George Takei as Judas. Oh my.

Pasolini–an atheist who was expelled from the Communist Party and had a movie based on the Marquis de Sade banned by the Italian government before being knifed to death by a gay hustler in 1975–films the Christ story with a shaky-cam documentary style that even gives blind people headaches. Some of the Jewish leaders have hats so ridiculous that even the Pope wouldn't wear them.

ULTRACHRIST!
Look, up in the sky! It's a skydiving hippie! It's that guy from Three Dog Night in a jetpack! No, it's Ultrachrist

In this low low low low low budget film that looks like it was filmed in every high-rent/low-maintenance apartment in the Big Apple, director Kerry Douglas Dye poses the scenario that if Jesus returned to Earth he'd have to reinvent his image by taking on the persona of a superhero in divine Spandex. Well, at least he's got the body for it. That's right, Affleck, I'm looking at you, flabby.

Christ runs around New York City in his street-bought sandals and clip-on utility belt that doesn't seem to be holding any utilities in his never-ending quest to fight crime. Eventually the big man upstairs decides he doesn't like his favorite son's new public persona and the Antichrist is on the rise and Christ finds himself stuck between appeasing his father or ridding the Earth of unholy evil, much in the same way the audience finds themselves struggling to either return the video to the store for a full refund or throw the thing in an incinerator to spare anyone else from watching it.

THE MIRACLE MAKER
Get ready to see Jesus like you've never him before--in crappy, old-fashioned stop-motion animation that even kids don't use when they're making Star Trek fan films in their basement.
If you thought that Sunday school film of the death and resurrection had more wooden and hollow actors than a Renaissance faire, wait until you see these actors who are actually made out of hollow wood. It's a stop-motion "3-D" film of the Jesus story that looks like the makers of Robot Chicken phoned in their last episode so they could clear the animation studio space for Assy McGee in time.

It also features an all-star cast of celebrity voices including Alfred Molina, Miranda Richardson and Ralph Fiennes as the voice of Jesus, because, after all, the Son of Man spoke with a stuffy British accent though he was born and raised in abject Bethlehemic poverty.

THE DAVINCI CODE
The book that everyone in your office cubicle said you have to read is now a big-budget overblown movie without any big words or scary facts about religion to give you a headache. The book and movie dares to uncover the greatest cover-up in the history of the Catholic Church, unless you don't count the church's refusal to stand against the Holocaust and the string of priest molestations and the selling of indulgences as a form of penance and the fact that eating meat on Friday between Ash Wednesday and Good Friday is no longer a damnable sin.

The movie suggests that the Son of Man was also quite the Ladies' Man because of an alteration in Leonardo DaVinci's famed "Last Supper" painting. Of course, it doesn't get to that juicy little tidbit until after two-thirds of the most excruciatingly bad acting and dialogue is done. But it doesn't end there. There's this big M. Night Shyamalan ending that reveals Jesus had a family tree, and after you calculate what you’ve had to sit through to get to that one scene, you realize that Christ may have died on the cross for our sins, but now we’ve paid him back by remaining faithful all the way to the excruciatingly painful end.

Capital Mosaic Website blog

Just to let you all know, Mosaic has now got a blog, the first post is by Jessica Falconer, asking the questions "are we people of the way or of the book" and "How do I follow Jesus in my job?

Thoughts welcome.

N.B, I will be writing for this hopefully some time close in the future.

Everything must change

I graduated from university 2 weeks ago with honours in politics, I was going to put up some photos at that point and time but life has been kind of busy, so here are some pictures from graduation. You will notice that I've had my hair cut since last year. I really enjoyed my graduation day this year. It was really special knowing that I was moving into a new job.

I have also started a new job, at present I'm packing for my second work trip and the first time i've packed shirts etc. for work. I'm looking forward to the experience, yet nervous as well. I'm happy that I can work in an area that I'm passionate about.

I'm at that point of discovery, moving into new areas of responsibility and growth. Life is intense, the I'm crashing through, learning, growing, changing. I'm enjoying the ride.

Redefining the Success of Evangelism

Mike Brantley has done another great post where he dialogues with his brother in law Gavin Knight (a successful church leader of a mainline Christian Congregation.) He was asked by gavin on how you define success in the Missional Church paradigm. Mike Brantley replied:

Measuring success: Just had a conversation this past week of how we are doing that. Souls in heaven is the ultimate isn’t it?! What we (our community and not able to speak for anyone else) is using a pathway: not interested, potential contact, contact, participating, journeying, embracing the Gospel, grounding, serving, growing, reproducing, catalyst... This left to right scale is a method we use to measure where we are with EVERY contact... From a Rona (whom you know) to Justin (latest newsletter) they are on there; what we are doing is discussed, what next, managing the conversational journey with them, etc. SO there is a measure of success as we move them along.

Anyway, there are many great things that are said in this post, especially some really practical thoughts on Missiology (the study of how to do mission in the culture we live.) You can find the full post here.

Seth Godens - "The Dip"

I went into town for the day yesterday and caught up with a couple of mates and had my haircut (you should see how different it looks.) I caught up with Benn Crawford at Supreme Coffee to get some Ethiopian Yergechaffe Coffee and we had a long talk about our favourite subjects of sociology, marketing, human potential and life. He recommended that I go off and read “The Dip” by Seth Goden. Benn would say that Goden is a mentor of his, I can see why, Goden can get his points across in clear and concise ways, and like any good marketer he can sell you his idea.

The Dip
The Dip is a book about assessing when is the right time to quit. Goden argues in his book that one of the major aspects of the human psyche is to quit when we begin to feel a sense of pain. When we pick up an instrument and start playing for the first time, the baby steps are real easy and we find that we receive affirmation for the little work we put in, we hear that we are a natural, then it goes into a dip, where we put in lots and lots of energy with little or no return. Those are successful are those who can go through the dip then see the rewards at the other end.

One key idea that came out of this book is that we should strive to be the best in our own sphere of influence and where we are working. Striving to be the best rather than being average is the key to success and gaining worth in ourselves and the world around us.

Goden looks at three different curves, one being to the dip and another being the cul de sac curve. The Cul de sac is a curve where you are putting in energy and constantly receiving the same results. This is the case in which you work in a dead end job, the energy you put in gets you know where, you are being offered no ways forward and there is no chance of further success. At this point you should quit. Goden argues that even when it seems you have been in a successful roles, at times you should quit because the development that you can get from moving on into another sphere of influence is greater.

Value Systems
Godens work contains a lot of truth for how we should move into success. One issue I would see with a few ways Godens ideas work is the value systems that we are driven off. I do think it is important to quit at times, I’ve done this in my own life, particularly quiting from jobs which were bringing me no where so I could focus on the bigger picture, those that would allow me to achieve in my sphere of influence. But if we go out of a “whats best for me” strategy of quitting, our quitting can be ultimately destructive to individuals and friends around us. This particularly can occur when we put our economic or personal security above others. I have a view that how we view success needs to be put in light of what is best for the whole and how we can better society and humanity. There will be positive benefits that come from this for the person, actually there will be a deep sense of worth and value from this as well. By playing to our strengths and learning when to not quit we can benefit society a lot more. We are allowed to quit things that don’t bring substantial benefit to the whole.

Intention, Church and Life

The ideas contained in “The Dip” flow into one of my favourite principles of life; “The Principle of Intentionality”. The principle of intentionality is that we should live in view of fulfilling our values and letting our strengths as individuals shine. For me the central values that drive me have to be to love the lord with all my heart mind and strength and to love those around me, these are my central values – the driving value the comes off this is that I intentionally live in a way that makes the world a better place, then comes off these are my strengths/personality.

At the moment I’m personally going through a period of self-discovery, rediscovering and discovering the skills, talents, personality that God has given me so I can best play to my strengths in the environments that I serve and work in. I am trying new things and not trying to box myself in, but also wanting to become aware of who I am as a person.

The Cul De Sac and Individuals

I want to come back to the Cul De Sac again and talk about it. I believe like Seth that when you realise you are in a Cul De Sac you need to quit and quit fast. I have come to a conclusion recently in my own journey that the worst place to be is just existing. This is not what God intended. Existing is a place where you just do things because that’s what you have always done, with no value, with no reason. You just do it because you feel you have to, even though there are no benefits at all from doing it. I have seen this with friends in jobs which they should know are dead end and they should have quit a long time ago. They have so much more potential that working in the dead end job, but they stay there for security and safety. I did this for a long period in one organisation, staying there and not risking going out on a limb. What I have learned is when you trust your strengths you can risk a lot more that you thought. There is a truth, we have to come to know ourselves, become self aware of our own values and our own strengths, otherwise we are going to be shaped by the culture around us – for good or for ill.

I know I am being humanistic here, but I do not think this goes against the heart of God, God wants to see us be courageous in who we are and our sphere of influence for the benefit of the whole of humanity, God wants us to be wholly aware of who we are (that is, who he created us to be), and he wants us to be whole. By allowing ourselves to use our strengths and becoming what God intended us to be, we honour God and give him room to make us whole.

The Church and the Cul De Sac
The dip also is about the success of organisations. Organisations themselves can get to dead ends in what they are doing. I believe this is one of the issues at the heart of the decline of the church in the west. Though I think its worse than this, some churches are in decline because they have lost their value system, or they are watering down their value system and are being led into syncretism, but many Churches are focusing their energy and talents in the wrong way, into a model of church which leads to few results for lots of capital and energy.

Where Mosaic and the Missional Church is
Mosaic Wellington is probably lying somewhere in the Dip and not in the upward point, we are still small and having to put in a lot of energy to find out our talents and form and value systems and what we are about. The good thing is we have some organisational savy, we are definitely playing to our strengths (particularly in the area of good food) and the desire to be hospitable and living it out is rubbing off on our guests. These are early steps in the journey. Mike Brantley mentioned on his blog that it takes an average of five years to journey with someone for them to come to know God, so our dip may be five to seven years before we see the size of mosaic grow exponentially and then multiply (probably 10 years, though I could be wrong on this point as well.) We have to quit the things that are not working (for example, we had to quit the loft as we were putting to much energy into it at the time), we have to be intentional on the things we put our energy into and realise what may actually limit our potential to grow and reach those around us (so for us this means that we don’t see having a church building is an ultimate aim, there are benefits to having a building, but a building constrains you and the mission then becomes about upkeep on the building rather than the mission of God in this world.

We are a young part of a larger movement; we can see Mosaic LA which is past the dip (for it the dip was when Erwin took the church on Bradey. Even though the church on Bradey was a successful large Church, it was at the end of its growth and had lost its “edge.” It had got itself near to a Cul de Sac situation. Erwin came in and had to change the mindset of the church members – meaning that they lost a huge number of once committed people and he had to build the ethos of Mosaic from the ground up. This period was painful for the Church, but has meant that Mosaic is much larger than what it was in the past, having a global reach into the world and reaching many lost people within the city of LA. Seeing Mosaic past the dip gives us hope of what we can be, if we play of our strengths and keep to our ethos. I love Wellington and want it to be an even greater place to live, where dreams are lived and fulfilled lives. Where people know they belong and know they have worth. I want people to come to know Jesus because he can bring wholeness to our once broken selves and lives. I want my life to be a source of faith love and hope to those around me.

Awakening

Last week Mosaic held its national conference up in the Mount. I'm still chewing on what I've learned from this expereince. I think the one thing that hit me through this experience if the need foster self-leadership. Also I feel like I totally resonate with the heart of Capital Mosaic, its in my DNA and its setting me on fire for the next point in the Mission.

Erwin is a great communicator, an astounding communicator, it amazes me that he basically talked for six or seven hours to us without any written notes whatsoever and he could explain himself thoughtfully and articulately in the the spoken form. It also astounds me the conviction he has, his love for humanity and his love for awakening the human spirit to its potential found in the loving arms of our creator is immense. The call to awaken so that we can enact change in the world in an awesome call, one that my spirit is enthralled with.

This trip was a good point for me stop and reflect on myself, spiritually, emotionally and physically. I am in between jobs, I start a new permanent role at a government department next monday. This new position is awesome because I get to explore my passions for cross-cultural relationships, justice, history and politics. It means that I can develop myself as a communicator of ideas and I can develop strong relationships with others around me. Hopefully I will live up to the challenges and learn to be truly alive in the situations I face and the tasks I am involved in. I really beleive that this position is meant for me that and it can bring about positive change in communities I work in. This time away has given me a strong conviction that at my work I need to be intentional, I live with the responsibility that I may be the only source of faith love and hope that people will see. I embody Christ in this environment and because of this I have to be both committed to the work I do but committed to getting to know those who I work with personally, to learn what their hopes and fears are, and by doing so, showing them that Jesus wants to heal thier pain and wants them to live for something bigger than themselves.

This week is important for me as I rest and relax, but I'm also using the time intentionally, I have a few tasks that I'm at the moment involved in.

I am exploring and writing up my spiritual story. I have not written my story in a while, I am trying to get out the emotion and the pain of the early part of my story. I am intentionally trying to write it for people who are not on a christian spiritual journey at present. This is hard and painful, I would ask that you would pray for me as I do this.

I'm doing work on what it means to be a missional pastor in this day and age, what this means both using the gift of pastoring inside the church, but also in organisations as well. This is a joint project with my freind justin.

I am looking at a couple of shared projects to do with my passions and with the pain I've gone through in my journey as I beleive that these are places that I need to go so I can bring others healing.

These last two weeks are about becoming more aware to the life that God has called me to. Being more aware and about awakening the passions that God has given me.