Introducing the Uniting Church in Australia Blog

Breathe in (Breathe out) take 2

I've re-recorded the song today - trying some different approaches (although the arrangement is the same).  I've decided the song's finished, but it's not a normal song.  It's meant to be used in worship - or maybe in a business session of the Assembly or a Synod that needs a circuit breaker - as a lead into a period of silence.  I envisage the instrumental part following the two verses going for a few stanzars and becoming very spare and quiet for 5 minutes or so.  It would then gradually come back, as it does after the bridge in the recorded version.  Who knows if it would work?!

Breathe In (Breathe Out) 12 Feb 2012

 

Breathe in, breathe out

This partial song came to me this morning.  It needs another verse and a bridge (or mybe it doesn't).  I felt like it was for me and just about everyone else I know.  It's a reflection on  "Daily Readings with John Main" that was given to me by a friend - an invitation to centering prayer. I did a quick recording of it as offer it as it is - with love.

Breathe In (Breathe Out) 15 Jan 2012

 

Assembly worship workshop briefing notes

I have been asked for information on the theme for the 13th Assembly.  These are the notes that were sent to the participants at a weekend workshop that was held in August. 30+ talented folk spent the time writing, drawing, composing, designing and generally wearing themselves and each other out as they got started on material that might be used in the Assembly's worship next July.

Download Worship workshop briefing notes for participants

Jesus wasn't very picky

I used this song to introduce a Bible Study on I Corinthians 12 at the SA Synod this morning.  A few people asked if the song was available. So I've posted it here.

I wrote the song in 1997. The team putting together the Uniting Church's "confirmation" kit (published the next year under the title Belonging) asked me for something on the church. For some reason the thing I most wanted to share with people joining the church was that we will disappoint you. Probably disappoint you a lot. But don't be put off by that.

Talk about inspirational, eh?

There are obvious biblical references - Jesus calls the disciples (Mk 1:16-20), dividing the sheep from the goats (Mt 25:32), the parable of the weeds among the wheat (Mt 13:24-30). The chorus references the Nicene Creed.

09 Jesus Wasn't Very Picky

 

Bread for a pilgrim people

A group of us are working on a worship event for Uniting College next week.  The theme of pilgrimage has become important.  It looks like we'll probably use the affirmation of faith based on paragraph 3 of the Basis of Union  "We are a pilgrim people".  I remembered a song I wrote awhile ago for something similar - a communion song:

Bread for a pilgrim people/ Provision for the way/ The freed sustained and nourished/ To journey on each day/ For our freedom we praise you/ For our feeding give thanks/ Bread of Life we will share you/ Now before we break camp...

I've attached a recording of the song to this post.  The arrangement and the recording is pretty rough, but you'll get the idea.

Bread for a pilgrim people

 

 

life overflowing

"Life Overflowing" is the theme for the thirteenth assembly of the Uniting Church (July 2012). I'm officially open to creative ideas on how to develop it. Here's some of the background on why I proposed this theme to the Assembly Standing Committee. It was approved this weekend.

The expression “life overflowing” is drawn from John 10:10: …egō ēlthon hina zōēn echōsin kai perisson echōēsin; variously translated, “I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly” (NRSV), “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full” (NIV), “My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying life” (NLT). The tricky word to translate is perisson which, used adverbially as it is here means something like: over and above, more than necessary, to excess. “Abundantly” is a very good translation but is a term that is not common in the English conversation of Australians. It seemed too “in house” to me. I suggested to my colleague in New Testament studies that “overflowing” might be a reasonable alternative to “abundant”. She replied, “I thought about something like : ‘to the brim’, but you actually want it to mean ‘to the brim and over!’ (like when I pour a beer…) It’s even more than you need. Overflowing is accurate, I think. Life to the brim and beyond.” Other colleagues have suggested “life in excess” (too reminiscent of INXS, to me) and life@full (or even life@full+).

The theme of “life overflowing” commends itself for several reasons.

John 10:10 is, of course, a much-loved text in itself. But the theme of God’s gift of and sovereignty over life is central to the Biblical witness. God’s breath or Spirit gives life to human beings and every living thing (Genesis 2:7, Psalm 104:29-30). The Law is given as a call to “choose life” (Deuteronomy 30:19). Christ is proclaimed as “the bread of life” (John 6:33-35) and “the word of life” (1 John 1:1-2), and following him together is true life (Romans 6:4, 8:6; Colossians 3:3-4). The vision of the consummation of God’s mission is of “the river of life” and a whole avenue of “the tree of life”, for the sake of which Adam and Eve had been expelled from the garden (Revelation 22:1-2; Genesis 3:22-24).

“Life overflowing” also has resonances with the theme of the Twelfth Assembly, “living water – thirsty land”. There is an obvious link between “life overflowing” and the Assembly policy “An Economy of Life”. This would present opportunities to keep that policy before the church. This will be especially important as the Australian National Development Index project begins to roll out during 2013.

From a distance...

Working on a new edition of my book on theological education I found a letter from Steven Mackie, a major contributor to global thinking on theological education towards the end of the 20th century.

Steven was my teacher, mentor and friend.  I'd sent him a copy of the book and he was kind enough to offer me his comments.  He related his own study of theological education worldwide to what I'd done within the confines of the Uniting Church, he also made comparisons between his own denomination, the Church of Scotland, and mine.  There's a fascinating comment on an educational experiment that Lesslie Newbigin initiated in South India with emerging leaders that Steven connects to other innovations around the world.  (I remembered Steven giving me Newbigin's phone number, in 1984 or thereabouts, so that I could check a minor detail in my PhD thesis that Steven was supervising.  I was tongue tied when Bishop Newbigin answered the phone...) 

Steven might overestimate the openness of the Uniting Church to missional change, but it was encouraging nonetheless.  He died a few weeks ago.  I miss him.  I've put a link to his "review" below.

Download Mackie review

A vision for theological education and formation

The Uniting Church has a vision for theological education and formation?  Who knew?  Well I should have at least.  I only "discovered" it when I recently re-read a chapter in my own book on the subject - "A genuinely educated ministry": three studies on theological education in the Uniting Church in Australia, MediaCom Education Inc, 2007.  It was the Eighth Assembly that resolved, in 1997:

to affirm that the vision for all education for Ministry in the Uniting Church includes:

• participation  of the whole people of God in the mission of God revealed in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit;
• the centrality of the Scriptures in the life of the Church and the work of ministry (Basis of Union paras 5 & 11);
• the importance of lifelong learning and formation in the Christian life for all people;
• the shared ministry of the people of God... (Assembly minutes 97.32.02)

There have been four Assemblies since then, and while none of them have explicitly reaffirmed that vision, neither have any rescinded or modified it - not even the Tenth Assembly in 2003 that dealt with the report of yet another Task Group on Theological Education.  So we've got a vision.  And its missional through and through.

In the UCA the Assembly has "determining authority" for, among other things, "the establishment of standards of theological education and reception of ministers from other denominations" (Constitution s.38a).  That is, it's the council that's responsible for determining what "the vision for all education for Ministry in the Uniting Church" is going to be if we're going to have one.  It turns out we do.  All education for ministry in the Uniting Church is to be oriented towards the participation of the church - in each and every member - in the mission of God.

I've attached to this blog a (dodgy) pdf of the full resolution of the Assembly on the report of the Task Group on the Review of Ministerial Education.  When I re-read the vision, goals, principles, and other elements of the Assembly's resolution, I was struck by how it affirmed the same things that were emphasised at the Edinburgh 2010 Conference on World Mission.  Theological education and formation was one of the six study themes worked on by the conference.  It was the most broadly ecumenical gathering to have ever taken place.  So I was listening carefully as the world church turned its attention to the area that I work in.

The conference said it was "critical" that theological education be re-visioned missionally, making mission and Missiology the integrating theme for all aspects of theological education.

The conference also regarded it as "critical" that Spiritual formation be given the same weight as intellectual training - to equip leaders to be "spiritually fit" themselves and effective as "spiritual mentors" in the church.The conference gave particular attention to new directions in theological education such as:

• The development of non-institutional forms of teaching and learning (e.g. the development of learning communities throughout the church)
• Mentoring, spiritual direction, intentional community life as ways of theological teaching, learning and formation that have a long history in the church but which have been neglected as a result of the dominance of a western academic paradigm
• The need for western churches to learn from the new approaches to theological education and formation that are emerging in the majority Christian world

If you read through the resolution of the Eighth Assembly of the Uniting Church, you'll see that its own vision for "all education for Ministry in the Uniting Church" is completely consistent with the vision of the world church expressed at Edinburgh 2010.

Mission-shaped theological education and formation: the Assembly has a vision for it, the world church says it's vital, so how is our actual practice in theological education and formation measuring up?

Download UCA Vision

Is it time for a plain English version of the Basis of Union?

I love the language of the Basis of Union.  I love its originality and imagination.  But I love the message of the Basis of Union more.  After spending a few days with the skilful people who were providing simultaneous translations of my Bible studies for the Indigenous and Indonesian members of the Northern Synod, I started to see how meaning can be doubly concealed - first, by being expressed in a foreign language and, second, by being expressed in a sophisticated use of a foreign language.  

English is a foreign language to a growing proportion of the Uniting Church's members.  There are nearly 50 different languages used now in Uniting Church life and worship.  English is a second language (if not a third, fourth or fifth) to those thousands of our members.  And, as Tony Floyd reminded me, church-speak and theological English amounts to a foreign language to an increasing number of people too.

The Basis of Union has already been translated into Korean, Tongan, Indonesian, Samoan, Fijian, Chinese, Arabic, and Nuer.  In 1992 the Assembly provided the church with a gender-inclusive version of the Basis, "to diminish the possibiliy that the non-inclusive language of the Basis is a barrier to its use in the church".

Is it time to translate the Basis of Union into plain English?

Two songs

I've had a few requests for recordings of two of the songs I used in the Bible Studies at the recent Northern Synod annual meeting.  Warning: these are home recordings.

01 There are no strings

Words and music by Andrew Dutney

When your heart has been broken 3

Words and music by Andrew Dutney