[ hold :: this space ]

i curated the weekly chapel service for our office today. the synod office where i work has close to 100 staff, though only a handful come to chapel each week. i think it’s probably one of the hardest worship gigs i do.

the first three comments from people who came in were, in order ‘oh god, you’re not going to make us work, are you?’, then ‘i thought rob brown was meant to be on today’ [Rob's our Synod CEO], and lastly ‘it’s not going to be all touchy-feely is it?’. lucky i was feeling feisty this morning, so it only reduced me to a state of nervousness, rather than outright panic…

nonetheless, it went well… apart from the failure of the wireless internet connection, which i was relying on to stream the NYTimes photodocumentary I linked to yesterday… and the cd player rejecting the cd it was playing happily just seconds before, halfway through the service. sometimes technology just doesn’t work… i have never had a problem with the wireless connection up there, and when i tested it yesterday it was absolutely fine… the cd was, as i said, working until half way through the service. i always have backups… i threw on a copy of the ‘whitelady’ dvd that was in my computer bag [which had no connection with the liturgy at all, but i figured everyone there would just put it down to being something deep and meaningful...]. i had no backup for the cd that didn’t involve a lot of disruption, so i just let it be quiet, until towards the end when i put music on through a laptop. so be it.

anyway, this was the outline of what we did. i liked it, anyway.

Welcome to this time of worship.

How does this advent find you?

does it find you empty
wondering how this story can become new again
when you have already wrung every miracle and promise within it dry?

does it find you cynical,
wondering how long you can hold the faith
when with all the waiting and yearning and longing of advent’s past,
the world has barely changed.

does it find you wanting so badly for this all to be true
that you will talk the world into joy and hope
out of fear that if you don’t
it just might not appear.

does it find you reluctant,
here only because the lectionary tells you it’s that time of the year again
and the world offers you no other choice?

in this time of worship this morning
let your act of faith be to
let advent find you
wherever you are
to create a space inside us and the world
where mystery and presence might grow.

Play ‘O come, o come Emmanuel’ – Sufjan Stevens

[invite people to move around the three spaces]

space 1:

[set up with a flash animation, a large lit candle and tea lights shaped into the outline of a semi-automatic machine gun, along with the following words:]

The Lord will teach us his law from Jerusalem,
and we will obey him.
He will settle arguments between nations.
They will pound their swords and their spears
into rakes and shovels;
they will never make war or attack one another.

People of Israel, let’s live by the light of the Lord.

Isaiah 2:3-5

The news about Palestine and Israel barely made the headlines in last week’s news.

We’ve heard promises of peace too often. We are suspicious of political manoeuvring. We know all the reasons – rational and not – why it cannot work.

What will it take for the world to lay down its bombs
What will it take for us to lay down our cynicism?

They will pound their swords and their spears into rakes and shovels
Light a candle and pray for a bomb-shattered world…

People of Israel, let’s live by the light of the Lord.
Light another and pray for cynicism to be transformed into faith.

Space 2:

[set up with a poster of the image 'From Darkness', Darab B. Shabahang; some 'to do' pages ripped from a diary, pens, and the following words:]

The Lord will teach us his law from Jerusalem,
and we will obey him.
He will settle arguments between nations.
They will pound their swords and their spears
into rakes and shovels;
they will never make war or attack one another.

People of Israel, let’s live by the light of the Lord.

Isaiah 2:3-5

Our weapons are much more sophisticated than spears and swords
much more subtle than air-borne missiles and semi-automatic rifles.

We have the capacity to destroy every day with power, influence, knowledge…

and like the craftsman who chooses whether to turn the metal into a rake or a spear, we choose how we will use the resources at our disposal.

They will never make war or attack one another.

Think through the day to come
the meetings you will have
the people you will talk to
the decisions you will make

what weapons will you lay down?
what ploughshares will you take up?

Write your prayer for today onto a note and take it with you.

Space 3:

[set up with a laptop streaming this NYT photo-documentary, a photo of Julie Mugford's sculpture 'Breaking Free', a pile of magnetic poetry words, and the following words:]

The Lord will teach us his law from Jerusalem,
and we will obey him.
He will settle arguments between nations.
They will pound their swords and their spears
into rakes and shovels;
they will never make war or attack one another.

People of Israel, let’s live by the light of the Lord.

Isaiah 2:3-5

When the weapons are gone
peace can still be elusive.

Just because we have been released from our cells
doesn’t mean freedom is anywhere to be found.

What are you waiting for, this advent?

find the words that tell your story…

—–

[If the cd had still been working then i would have gathered people back together with Lou Rhodes' song 'Vox'....

and then we finished with this:]

As we leave to go back to our workplaces,
let our act of faith be to
let Advent find us
wherever we are
and to create a space inside us and the world
where mystery and presence might grow.

Go in faith
to find the peace that is already being given birth in the world
in the name of Christ.
Amen.

this has been a while coming! It’s some of the notes from a conversation David, Mike, John and I had, debriefing this year’s trip.

what don’t you want to forget?
energy in leaders, a ‘looking forward’, a vitality
the personal ‘uncovering’
the concept of faithful remnants [Manchester] - not an issue, let them be a remnant, don’t try to force them into something they’re not

what sticks in your mind?
the instant hospitality offered to us by the communities we visited - we were invited in to be a part of every community
mission focus - context speaking to you - ‘what will peace look like in this place?’, rather than going in knowing what we need to offer
mission predicated by listening - and a directed listening
theology emerging from within the group [ikon], not planted onto it
the liberation of working with coordinates rather than doctrine [ikon]
all the communities we visited ‘hold lightly’ to what they are doing, they don’t see it as a finished product
it’s only an impossible workload if it’s not where your passion is

questions we’ve come away with
how do we bridge the disconnection between leadership and ‘the people’ [my note: perhaps by changing that question!]?
how do the communities we visited, which are largely made up of disaffected church goers, not get bitter?
how do we find the people who are looking for mission?
the history of the UK church is so old that perhaps alternative isn’t threatening - impact of being a state religion

what did you learn?
don’t begin with a finished product [from Manchester - ask the question 'what does it mean to be church in this place?]
we’re too dependent on funding, we let funding processes be our discernment process
don’t let the uniting church decide what your passion should be

intentions
to make a network here that deliberately sets out to support and encourage new initiatives, rather than focus on changing what already exists

I’m using these notes as a basis for planning next year’s trip… which is looking wonderful already. can’t wait.

we’ve been having serious discussions here about the future, playing around with ideas and scenarios. rather than having a strategic plan [which is a disaster with my personality type, and within a project like this - a certain recipe for paralysing guilt and stifling creativity], i’m working on articulating and working towards a focus. the focus / theme we’re playing with for next year is ‘unleashing imagination’.

i’m reading Margaret Wheatley again. wordy, she’s wise. In this article, The new story is ours to tell, she’s talking about organisational change, and the stories that guide our thinking.

In organizations of the old story, plans and designs are constantly being imposed. People are told what to do all the time. As a final insult, we go outside the organization to look for answers, returning with benchmarks that we offer up as great gifts. Yet those in the organization can only see these packaged solutions as insults. Their creativity has been dismissed, their opportunity to discover something new for the organization has been denied. When we deny life’s need to create, life pushes back. We label it resistance and invent strategies to overcome it. But we would do far better if we changed the story and learned how to invoke the resident creativity of those in our organization. We need to work with these insistent creative forces or they will be provoked to work against us.

and…

What we ask of the tellers of the new story is their voice and their courage. We do not need them to create a massive training program, a global-wide approach, a dramatic style. We only need them to speak to us when we are with them. We need them to break their silence and share their ideas of the world as they have come to know it.

If you carry this story within you, it is time to tell it, wherever you are, to whomever you meet. Brian Swimme compares our role to that of the early Christians. They had nothing but
“. . . a profound revelatory experience. They did nothing nothing but wander about telling a new story.”

As with these early believers, Brian encourages us to become wanderers, telling our new story. Through our simple wanderings, we will “ignite the transformation of humanity.”

And he leaves us with a promise (from Evolution Extended, Connie Barlow Ed., MIT Press, 1994, p 297):

“What will happen when the storytellers emerge? What will happen when ‘the primal mind’ sings of our common origin, our stupendous journey, our immense good fortune? We will become Earthlings. We will have evoked out of the depths of the human psyche those qualities enabling our transformation from disease to health. They will sing our epic of being, and stirring up from our roots will be a vast awe, an enduring gratitude, the astonishment of communion experiences, and the realization of cosmic adventure.”

What a wonderful promise. I invite you into the telling.

link

a bit of background about the restorative justice project

The Uniting Church - like many other faiths communities and christian churches in victoria - has had an extensive prison ministry over many years. This includes a team of prison chaplains, and also some post-release care through various Uniting Care agencies. It is, obviously, important work, but it’s a little like putting the ambulance at the bottom of the cliff. There’s been a growing commitment over the last few months to broadening our focus - or really, to changing the paradigm out of which we operate, hence the restorative justice project.

[if you're new to this, wikipedia has an excellent overview of the principles and practice of restorative justice.]

Why is the Uniting Church making this a focus?
theologically… i said in the last post that the prison work had become the question to which the entire alt worship project needed to answer. i was understating the case somewhat - Luke has Jesus beginning his ministry with the verses from Isaiah 58 [Luke 4:16-20], in part to remind us that every part of our ministry - our community life, our worship, our theology - needs to answer first to the blind, the widow, the poor and the prisoner… if our theology, and its outworking, doesn’t first bring freedom to the prisoner [and there are no convincing arguments as to why we shouldn't take that literally], then it won’t actually bring freedom to anyone [our natural inclination is to reverse that: to get 'ourselves' right, and then we'll 'do' justice and compassion].

We link justice to punishment; the bible links it to restoration. We talk about God being pure grace, love and justice; yet when it comes to prisoners we’ll invoke vengeance without a second thought. Sure, it’s prisoners who make it hard to speak of a god of grace, love and justice - but that’s the exact point. it might be hard, but it’s in that context we have to make it work. There are some people i would quite happily judge as irredeemable, but it’s not up to me to do that. If i’m to call myself a person of faith, then i give up the right to judge another person.

sociologically… the politicians keep telling us that crime rates are down in victoria, yet statistics tell us that the rates of imprisonment are higher. The basis of this project is for the Uniting Church to join others involved in this area, to do what it can to reverse that trend. It needs to be said that the aim of this project isn’t to close all prisons. There are some people who need to be kept separate from the community. But for the many prisoners who don’t fit this category, there are other forms of justice that actually restore wholeness - both to them, and to the community they’ve damaged.

so, what does the uniting church need to do for a prison to be closed?

This is not a short term project, obviously. And it needs to be approached from a multitude of angles: for it to work we need to begin conscientising the members of congregations and faith communities to the issue - much like the process that was undertaken with asylum seekers a few years ago… though of course, this is a much less sexy issue, and it’s much harder to do the face to face conversations that helped so much in that issue. We need to begin speaking in a different language - in our theology and our worship. As Jenny said last week, we basically need to convert congregations to a vision of the kingdom of heaven. Alongside that, we need to be talking with politicians, members of the judiciary and the media.

so, the next twelve months looks like this:
gathered events

• we’re beginning with a community justice forum - listening to the groups and people involved in the existing justice system, and in restorative justice already, learning from them, and then discerning what it is that the uniting church can offer to that conversation

• then we’ll launch into other more general educative forums for the uniting church - starting a conversation between prison chaplains and Uniting Care community service agencies, to identify the gaps in the care of people who are moving through and beyond the justice system.

• there’ll also be a couple of forums that are open to members of the public, and church members, in order to get some broader community awareness.

• the commission for mission staff gathering next year will involve Elaine Enns, who is a restorative justice practitioner [she will be in australia with her partner, Ched Myers].

communication

• we’re going to blitz the church newspaper with stories, articles, interviews about restorative justice, and the people affected by the justice system.

• we’re developing a community information pack, including ways people can get involved on an individual and local level - advocating to their local members of parliament, establishing forums for restorative justice in their own context

• i’ll write faith columns about this for the newspaper

humanising the issue

• finding ways to tell stories of people who have been through the prison system [the film project will be part of this]

worship and theology

• workshops, resources, conversations with faith community leaders about the language and imagery we use in worship

That’s just the start of it, and it’s a massive amount of work… but we’ve started on it already, and that’s the most important thing…

Stay tuned, or come along for the ride if you’re able…

i’m in the midst of writing proposals and rationales… i always think it’s going to be mindnumbing work, but it never is. it’s by doing this kind of thing that the missing connections always come together in my mind.

until the last few weeks, the majority of people who got in contact with me were those from within the church, wanting me to come and do stuff with them, or to find out about workshops or resources, etc. That balance has changed. The majority of uninitiated contact - emails, phone calls, etc. - is now coming from people who aren’t part of the church - never have been, or never want to be again.

I’m writing a rationale for the body who auspice this project, about why we would want to get involved in an alternative space in the city that might never have any impact on the church - which wouldn’t privilege christianity over other faiths, and in which the uniting church would not be the ones offering hospitality, but rather just one of the parties at the table. in the rationale i’ve been reflecting on what i’ve heard as i’ve been in conversation with people recently - and i wrote this paragraph:

Unexpectedly, we’ve discovered a growing number of people in the second and third groupings [those who have left the church and christianity, but still see themselves as having faith; those who have never been to church and never will] who are contacting us to find out more about alternative worship and sacred spaces. Their trust takes a long time to be earned. Their involvement is deeply hesitant. They aren’t necessarily anti-church, often they haven’t been hurt by the church, but they simply aren’t interested in the world of the church. They say, quite openly, that they never intend to go into a church [and, if asked, will look completely bewildered as to why they would be expected to]. They don’t come to an event or space because they want to talk [except, perhaps, one on one in a different space and time], they are [often] quite faithful to a set of beliefs, they aren’t particularly lonely, they don’t want / need to be ‘fixed’, they’re not looking for a new group of friends, they’re involved in community and, often, in acts of justice. They know about christianity, and have often been formed by it, but they’re not there any more. They’re not searching for constructed meaning or belief, they’re looking for a place that will bring to life the stuff that is at their heart.