The art Issue Issue 04 October 2011
The Art of irrelevance
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illuminate camp
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Mark Sayers
Lauren Pinches
An Invitation to Imagine
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A taste of the transcendent
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Roshan Allpress
Marcy Paynter
Learning to read again
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Cheryl Catford-McCallum Changing the creative conversation
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Risk has become a four letter word
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State youth games
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Cory Maxwell-Coghlan
Brenton Killeen
Nick Waring
Contributors Mark Sayers
Lillian Carland
Lauren Pinches
Roshan Allpress
Mark is the Senior Leader of Red, a Church focusing on the young adult demographic [redchurch. org.au], and co-founder of Über a young adult discipleship ministry. Mark lives in Melbourne, with his wife Trudi, daughter Grace, & twin boys Hudson & Billy.
Lillian is a prolific, awarded and reviewed painter of over 36 years exhibiting in major international galleries with over six thousand works in various techniques. She is currently serving oversees as an artist sent by her church. You can see her work at lilliancarland.com.
Lauren is part of the Illuminate Camp leadership team, about to lead on her 5th YV camp. She has been a Youth Group leader at Doncaster Church of Christ for 6 years, directing for 2 of those years. This year is her first as a primary school teacher. She is engaged to a wonderful man and part of a wonderful family.
Roshan works for the Compass Foundation, an organisation that seeks to cultivate gospel-centered living, leadership & networks. He loves talking about how the Gospel can be translated into all areas of life. Roshan lives in New Zealand, and is married to Lottie.
Cory Maxwell-Coghlan
Cameron Semmens
Cheryl CatfordMcCallum
Marcy Paynter
Cory is the creator of The Project [theproject.org.au], the author of the Naked City Guide [nakedcityguide. com.au] and an incoming Masters of Theology student at Harvard University. He is currently employed at Australia’s largest Uniting Church, Newlife, on the Gold Coast where he works with youth & young adults.
Cameron is both a poet and performer. He brings his unique brand of entertainment and insight to people around Australia through running workshops, performing and selling his books. He lives in Melbourne with his wife Sonya, who is also a writer, and his children Spencer and Mieka.
Cheryl is the Head of the School of Theology and Context at Tabor College Victoria. She said we should leave off that she is Reverend Doctor Cheryl because it could sound pretentious - but we’re including it because, Cheryl, we think it’s awesome!
Marcy is Pastor of Creative Ministries at Gateway Family Church in Seaford [gateway.asn.au]. Originally trained as an art teacher, she has always been passionate about the power of the Arts in worship.
Nick Waring
Brenton Killeen
Nick has been part of the YV team as Director of State Youth Games since 2007. He is deeply committed to young people and their development, and loves that SYG can be a catalyst in that process. Nick lives in Ballarat with his wife Renita and son Jobe.
Brenton is Director of Youth Vision Vic/Tas, Director of National Youth Ministry Convention, and Young Adults pastor of One Community Church in Blackburn. He lives with his wife Jess and daughters Madison and Tamsin.
Youth Vision is the youth and young adult ministry arm of Mission and Ministry Inc, a partner department of the Conference of Churches of Christ in Victoria and Tasmania. The Youth Vision team consists of Brenton Killeen, Jason Sawyer, Amy Stephenson & Nick Waring. A 1st Floor, 582 Heidelburg Rd. Fairfield VIC 3078 P 03 9488 8800 W vic.youthvision.org.au E yv@churchesofchrist.org.au
Designed by Oak & Ink Creative www.oakandink.com
The theme of this edition examines the relationship between two of my great passions, the arts and the church. These two things can seem like strange bedfellows, but they should not.
Recommended If you want to read more from our contributors or around similar topics, here are our recommendations:
WEB
The grain of sand (which stuck in my head) that led to this edition was something my pastor said about church. He said the church is very good at answering questions of lifestyle and apologetics (which are important questions to answer), but for some people outside the church these are not the spiritual questions they are asking. They want to know why it is that when they look at an exquisite sunset their soul seems to rise up in response, why when a certain song reaches its crescendo they feel like crying, why when looking at a piece of great art it can seem so beautiful that it hurts.
Cameron Semmens
So beautiful it hurts.
www.freshworship.org
Beauty reaches so deep into our humanness because it speaks of our origins but also of our future. It speaks of our creator God who knit together the human eye with such intricacy and uniqueness, but also of our final home when heaven hits earth and we dwell in a garden city lit by splendor and intimacy with God. Beauty speaks of both our brokenness and of our hope. As we express creativity we both celebrate the original creator, and partner with him in re-imagining and rebuilding the world.
www.marksayersthinks.com
Western youth and young-adulthood is largely shaped and defined around relationship with the arts. Young people delve into music, film, poetry and prose, trying to express, nourish and understand the deeper aspects of what it is to live and be human. This is something the church can ignore, there are plenty of other places young people will find their stimulation. Or it is something the church can foster and speak into, a way of revealing to them more of the depth of their God.
www.webcameron.com
Lillian Carland
www.lilliancarland.com
There goes rhyming Simon simoncross.wordpress.com
Compass Conversations www.compass.org.nz/ conversations
Grace: Fresh Vital Worship Mark Sayers
Vicky Beeching
vickybeeching.com/blog
BOOKS The Trouble with Paris: Following Jesus in a world of plastic promises
‒ Mark Sayers The Insect and the Buffalo: How the story of the Bible changes everything
‒ Roshan Allpress, Andrew Shamy The Vertical Self: How biblical
faith can help us discover who we are in an age of self obsession
So I hope that this edition inspires some people to dust off their poetry book or polaroid camera. But even more so that it challenges everyone who is in ministry to cultivate the arts within your community; to give creatives the time and space to influence the fabric of your church. It has been a privilege to work with each of these contributors. I have been inspired in a different way by each one. I hope you are too.
‒ Mark Sayers
Amy Stephenson
Blue Like Jazz:
The Beauty of the infinite:
The Aesthetics of Christian Truth
‒ David Bentley Hart How to Read the Bible for All Its Worth
‒ Gordon Fee Douglas Stuart Nonreligious thoughts about Christian Spirituality
‒ Donald Miller The Heart of the Artist
‒ Rory Noland
Quarterly Issue 04 October 2011
You may have noticed that we look a bit different this edition, YVQ is an ever evolving beast. That said, our purpose remains the same: resourcing youth and young adult leaders as they disciple young people.
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From the Editor
The art of irrelevance
Mark Sayers
Yet are these moves really about creativity? I am not so sure. So much of this movement to make Christians more creative is wrapped up in the quest to make Church more relevant. Which is a kind of short hand way of trying to say that we need to close the cultural gap between the Church and the wider society. That for the Christian faith in the West to remain relevant (note that word) we must be running at the same pace as secular culture when it comes trends and fashion. If we can achieve this, if our music, our images, our worship services look and sound like the wider culture, the doors of the Church will be broken down by the spiritually hungry.
I believe that we need to return to a biblical understanding of our God given mandate as humans to create. We are created in God’s image, God is the creator of the world, the architect of the Himalayas, the Bird of Paradise and the Andromeda system. God speaks the world into being. We are called to be his ambassadors on earth, to act as he acts; so the ability to create, to imagine things and then to bring them into being is an essential part of our humanity. We are not called to simply mimic, God gives us the ability to create. When God created humans in the garden he gave us the role of guardians or stewards of creation. When I hear steward I think of someone in a fluorescent vest ensuring that people do not run onto the pitch at sporting events. The Hebrew word used is Shomer; the english translation struggles to capture the true breadth of this word. A Shomer in Jewish thinking is someone who is chosen to look after and guard something of worth, and who is held accountable for their stewardship by a rabbinical court. The role of the Shomer is not simply to be a passive guard but to cultivate the item in their care. Thus as stewards we are called to partner with God in his great creative project, the redemption of a broken cosmos. God calls us to be a part of the creative process. Creativity is not a choice it is part of our mandate.
When we simply mimic the art of wider culture, we become something like gift shops at the art gallery, the real works are inside, and all we offer are mass produced prints and imitations. This view assumes that secularism is not the main reason that the Church is marginalised in the West, rather we have gotten our aesthetic wrong. A problem easily remedied by simply mimicking the style and fashions of the wider culture. So our services begin to look like Australian Idol, our Christian indie bands look like secular indie bands, youth ministry websites look like secular websites trying to reach the youth market. In the midst of all of this Christians do get a chance exercise their creativity, through their musical or design based gifting, but is this the kind of creative endeavor that we as believers are really called to? Is this genuine creativity or mimicry? When we see creativity as simply a tool to aid us in our quest to become relevant, we hungrily seek out those who have crossed over the cultural divide and who straddle the mysterious line between Christian and secular artists. For the last twenty-five years Christians have enquired about the faith status of Bono, now young believes ask similar ‘are they or aren’t they’ questions about The Temper Trap, Mumford and Sons, and Sufjan Stevens. These questions are rooted in the belief that by association with the social currency of celebrity the cultural gap can be further closed. When we simply mimic the art of wider culture, we become something like gift shops at the art gallery, the real works are inside, and all we offer are mass produced prints and imitations. I believe that we have to start again. I believe that the mission of the Church to the West will not be
On the Cross we discover a vital element of God’s creative nature. One of the struggles of the artist is to hold together the awe inspiring and the transcendent elements of life, those moments which remind us of God’s glory, with the painful and broken elements of life. Christians tend to do okay at the first part, Christian bookstores are filled with prints of glorious mountain ranges, we love the transcendent apex of the worship song. But we tend to struggle with the broken elements of life, with integrating suffering, lament and loss into our creativity. On the Cross, God intervenes in history with such staggering alacrity and originality we can only marvel at his creativity. In one moment, God’s glory is revealed, Jesus takes sin upon his shoulders and defeats death and evil, yet at the same time, we are confronted with the image of a dying God, a man whose painful screams speak of his isolation from God. The crucifixion is one of those rare moments, where the transcendent and the immanent, the glorious and the earthly, the human and the divine are held together. It is the ultimate template for Christian creatives. Hold those extremes together and you will produce work that no longer is mimicry, but which is truly creative.
Quarterly Issue 04 October 2011
One of the great moves over the last ten to fifteen years in Christian culture has been an attempt to close the creativity gap between the Church and the wider culture. Thus a great deal of Church websites are now more pleasing on the eye, our brochures look slicker, Christian bands look cooler, our worship is more experiential, and there are conferences aplenty to serve those wishing to learn more about creative ministries.
achieved by simply becoming cooler, or by mimicking the styles and tastes of the wider culture. Instead the church must understand what it truly means to create rather than to mimic. We only have to look to the past to see that this is possible, there is a whole cavalcade of creatives whose faith inspired them to be at the forefront of cultural creativity. We only have to listen to Handel, to look at a painting by Caravaggio, to walk through a building by Gaudi, or read Dostoyevsky to understand that for these great artists creativity was not about bridging a gap between the wider culture and the Church. Rather faith for these people was the foundation that enabled them to create sublime, incredible works of creativity which speak to us still today.
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There are very few people who would disagree with the notion that the Church needs to embrace creativity.
god’s masterpiece
Lillian Carland
Lillian Carland is a creative artist who has been sent by her church to serve in the Balkans. Lillian uses her creative ministry to bless and connect with her community; through community workshops, medical art clinics, artist in residence exhibitions, and church based work with children. We chatted with Lillian about the creation of her work God’s Masterpiece, and her thoughts on art as ministry. The painting is the result of a partnership in the Crossway Baptist Church sermon series, also titled God’s Masterpiece. It was painted on stage during the service throughout the series. The series theme was based on the words in Ephesians 2:10, ‘For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago’. It encouraged every person that they are God’s masterpiece, and that we are each still being worked on and perfected by God. The painting served as a visual point of reference for the church congregation, symbolising the gradual nature of producing something beautiful, and God’s persistent work to bring vibrancy out of darkness. I began the piece by painting the entire canvas black, representing darkness and chaos. The first strokes were painted at the top of the canvas in bright red, symbolic of God’s blood shed. Then the figure of the fisherman was crafted out of the dark area. Surrounding the figure are glittering waters, the colours of blood and water suggesting cleansing and baptism. I finished the piece by painting the net, illustrating that we are not only called to be cleansed and belonging to God’s kingdom, but actively serving as fishers of people for God’s glory. For me, the process was an act of worship; ministering to the church community on stage allowed me to join in worship in a different way. I am encouraged and challenged by the passages in Exodus about the skilled craftsmen being gifted by God to both build and make beautiful the dwelling place of the Lord, and to teach others their skills. There is a huge responsibility in ministry for the visual artist to witness to other artists, Churches and communities. The gift of visual arts is a blessing and must be used in a holy, moral and ethical way in order to be pleasing to God and used to bring people into relationship with him. Visual arts also provide a vehicle and platform for outreach in restricted areas. Some examples of this are the arts programs I am pioneering in the Balkans: a medical art clinic aiming at connection and discipleship to medical practitioners, art workshops for mentoring amateur female artists within the community, and public talks utilising and representing cultural heritage of different territories. Visual arts used as ministry in this way, in my practice, are used of God to open doors for people to respond to him. If you would like to see more of Lillian’s artwork you can go to her website www.lilliancarland.com
Illuminate camp: stepping into the story Lauren Pinches & Amy Stephenson
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lluminate Camp invites young people to be a part of something bigger than just themselves. The camp is an interactive plunge into God’s grand story of the world. It is our hope that by helping young people to better grasp the meta-narrative of scripture, that they will leave the camp with a better understanding of their own place in God’s story and the vital role they play within its chapters. Each morning of the camp the young people start by entering into the story, where they are asked to dwell in the story as if they are hearing it for the first time. Youth then engage in the story with a small group of peers and a leader, to explore, wonder and connect with the story. Groups then interact in the story through different mediums, like walking through a space set up with different stations of objects and manipulatives; or through further questioning, journaling and discussion.
Here is a taste of the journey of Illuminate.
Designed
Into darkness God speaks. Earth is created. God calls into being sky, light and darkness, sea and land, animals and plant life. Finally, he creates man and woman to bear his image and tend to his creation. God is pleased with what he has created; he calls it ‘very good’. He charges humanity with the vocation of tending to and populating the garden planet, to partner with him in completing the work. The beginning of our story is filled with wonder and delight, purpose and wholeness.
Broken
Into the perfect earth a serpent utters a question; a question which undermines the unity between God and humanity, a question which leads humanity to grasp at that which is not theirs. Adam and Eve’s choice leads to their separation from God. And like a domino effect this separation spreads out throughoutthe whole world until all of creation groans under its weight. This separation affects everything, it reaches deep into each of us and our relationship with God, one-another, ourselves and our world. Intervening in this broken world we see God begin to work through broken people to bring about wholeness. God hits the reset button through the floods and calls Noah to start the human role from scratch. God calls Moses, a crowd-shy refugee guilty of murder, to stand up against Pharaoh, king and god of the world super-power – Egypt. God calls David, and when Samuel turns up to anoint him as the future king of Israel, David isn’t even initially invited to his own party. David does much good but his heart turns and he commits adultery and murder. Yet God calls him ‘friend’ and vows to honor his bloodline by giving them the throne forever.
Forever? Really? Perhaps this promise is pointing to a different kind of king. Not the king that people wanted or expected, but one to rule with love and justice for all of eternity… Enter Jesus.
He is not the king that Israel was looking for – in fact he is distinctly disappointing to those who were hoping for an aggressive governmental overthrow. Yet the beautiful irony is that this humble figure is fulfilling all of the prophets’ anticipations of the coming king, and it is not until later that people will understand the significance of Jesus.
Satisfied
In a twist none but the greatest storyteller of all time could orchestrate – Jesus is crucified. At the hands of those he created to bear his image, to love and to partner with, almighty God is abused, tormented and violently hung on a torture device to die. His followers, devastated and confused, scatter. Darkness, disappointment and death seem to hang in the air; God has died, this story has become a tragedy.
Restoring
Then bursting from the grave comes God’s power of redemption. Jesus has conquered death once and for all and now we enter a new stage in history. You can hear the excitement in Jesus voice as he says ‘No, trust me, it’s better if I leave. Wait ‘til you see who is coming after me!’ The church is established as the new body of Christ on earth, and the Holy Spirit comes to dwell with the people. Once again God amongst his people, and the job hasn’t changed. This is the chapter of the book we find ourselves in, commissioned to restore people to God and to restore God’s creation, partnering with God in the work that he will one day complete. We look towards the day when heaven and earth will collide. As the story began with creation it ends with re-creation. Death, pain and separation from God are wiped from the face of the earth and the garden city is established. God dwells with his people on earth the way he originally intended – it is a picture of unspeakable beauty and intimacy, of which we long for but can barely imagine.
But we aren’t there yet; we still have work to do.
Quarterly Issue 04 October 2011
The climax of this story comes in the person of Jesus. God takes on human form and walks the streets of Israel, demonstrating to us fully the person of God. As with the characters we have seen before he is an unlikely hero, from the wrong side of town and born under scandalous circumstance in a way that could not be less grand. Jesus is a man whom children and outcasts are drawn to, who infuriates the religious leaders and challenges those willing to listen.
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Presence
An invitation to imaginE Roshan Allpress
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have recently begun to suspect that the greatest challenge facing the contemporary western church is not an absence of passion, or a lack of critical thinking, but the atrophy of our imagination.
Imagination is the human faculty that allows us to picture and name the world, not merely as it is, but as it could be. It is not the only tool in our creative armory, but it is essential. Consider how we use the Bible. The western church is very good at using the Bible as a source of doctrine, and throughout the past two centuries, we have spent incalculable time and resources defending truth as presented in the Bible. This is good. But in doing so, we have neglected the many other purposes for which the Bible was given to the church, including as a source of our collective imagination. Two hundred years ago, two educated individuals in Europe could have a conversation and assume that each would understand a certain range of references to cultural sources. These were largely drawn from the classical world, and from Scripture. They could refer each other to their Achilles heel or to the owl of Minerva, and both understand the references to Greek literature. Similarly, they could refer to a thorn in the flesh or to a valley of dry bones, and conjure in the mind of the other a whole microcosm of references and connotations drawn from the internal imaginative world of the Bible. For hundreds of years, from the publication of the King James Version to the mid-twentieth century, the Bible formed a central part of the cultural imagination of the people of Western Europe, and by extension, those who spoke, read and wrote in English. Biblical influence on patterns of thought, and more importantly, its assumptions, attitudes and very atmosphere can be found in
Shakespeare, Goethe, and even those who would seek to undo Christianity such as Nietzsche. Yet today our common cultural points of reference are not classical or Biblical. If one were to map the cultural sources of recent popular movies, high on the list would be comic book franchises, the Second World War, and the fantasy fiction of Tolkien and Lewis. These are the worlds of our collective cultural imagination, and the colour of many of our conversations. The result in this shift in imaginative sources has been that it has become hard to meaningfully communicate Gospel truths. Even more tragically, it has almost crippled our ability to imagine change in the world because of Christ. For example, if I refer to a phrase like “the blood of the lamb”, anyone with an acquaintance with Scripture and Christian culture will immediately recognise the sacrificial metaphor. A metaphor that echoes from Abel’s murder, through the Levitical priesthood, culminates in Christ, “the lamb slain before the foundations of the world,” and has made its way into contemporary worship music. It is a rich image, full of poignant meaning. However, to anyone who hasn’t been to a worship service recently, the phrase “blood of the lamb” might sound like the title of a horror film, or some sort of north African cuisine. It is almost impossible to communicate anything like the full meaning of the phrase, especially succinctly, to someone who is not immersed in the Bible. Further, for many Christians, “the blood of the lamb” is not a concept shaped by the whole of Scripture, but merely some words that pop up occasionally in songs at church. Our own collective imaginative world is more shaped by popular culture than it is by the Bible. This fact may explain the proliferation of sermons where the core text is a U2 song.
Tragically, this has demoted the Bible from one of its great functions. The Bible provides not merely a doctrinal world to believe, but an imaginative world from which we create. It incites us to imagine how the world could be, not just how it is. Its stories, central images, metaphors and motifs are meant to provide the source material and encouragement for us to re-imagine the world. This is what the Bible itself is – the people of God framing and reframing their changing world in light of what God has done and said. I believe that this reality is the starting point of the greatest challenge for the contemporary church – the re-creation of an imaginative world rooted in the Bible. We have plenty of precedent for this kind of massive creative project. The millennium between Constantine and the fall of Constantinople was characterised in Europe’s culture by a worldview of the imagination that functioned in the same way as a cathedral does – to draw the eye up towards God. Similarly, the likes of C.S. Lewis and J.R.R. Tolkien spent much of their lives creating imaginative worlds imbued with meaning. To spend time imagining Middle Earth or Narnia is to encounter worlds that owe much to Scripture, and therefore can be part of practicing imagination in conformity to the Gospel. The people you meet in church probably don’t need another experience. They may not even need to be convinced of another truth. But they do need to have their imaginations ignited by the fullness of that which God has done in Jesus. And they need to practice the kind of creative “chewing over” that comes from seeing a parable or a piece of the Old Testament as something more than a carrier for a proposition, but an invitation to imagine.
“If
you can’t go to church and at least for a moment be given transcendence, if you can’t pass briefly from this life into the next, then I can’t see why anyone should go. Just a brief moment of transcendence causes you to come out of church a changed person.” - Ken Gire Windows of the Soul
Transcendence, capturing glimpses of it has been my passion for over 30 years. My God is so big, so beautiful, so vast, so intimate that I could spend many lifetimes exploring and reflecting His character. When the people of God gather, there is no excuse for boring, unimaginative, same-old same-old worship. We are created in the image of the Great Creator and we are operating in His character when we bring creativity into our worship. It is also a great teaching technique. Some learn best visually, some need to listen while others learn by doing. If we can find ways to communicate our message in all these ways, we will lift the effectiveness of our teaching. What does creativity in worship look like? Of course we can use music and the spoken word, but we can also use dance, film, art, photography, drama. We can create candlelit reflection spaces or craft experiences that allow people to feel their worship in the physical. What can such an experience look like? At a recent Gateway midweek communion service (with a smaller congregation of about 100), we wanted to encourage people to move on from past hurts into the new future that God has prepared for each of us.
were then challenged to move around several stations or spaces that we set up around the room.
cross, we were encouraged to pray that the physical act would represent a spiritual reality.
Station one – We were encouraged to think about and write down the messages about ourselves that were given to us by our parents or significant others, messages that have hung in our spirits for years.
Finally – we came together and took communion to help us seal in prayer what God was saying to us.
Station two – In a quiet candlelit corner, we sat with individual MP3 players listening to Scriptures being read, scriptures that expressed God’s opinion of us and His plans for our lives. For many people, the contrast was an awakening moment. Station three – We read Hebrews 11 and imagined ourselves as heroes of the faith. As we looked back on our lives, what lessons could we see that God had taught us in hardship which allowed us to be more effective disciples?
What does creativity in worship look like? Of course we can use music and the spoken word, but we can also use dance, film, art, photography, drama. We started with excerpts from the film Great Expectations. Miss Haversham is jilted on her wedding day and 50 years later is still sitting in her dusty wedding dress. What a great analogy hanging on to the hurts of the past! We contrasted this story with Joseph’s: a man who could have chosen to sit in the bitterness of his past but allowed God to walk him into his future, having learnt valuable lessons from his pain. People
Station Four – A pile of heavy backpacks were placed at the back of the room. These represented past hurts that weighed us down and as we carried one to the front of the church and left it at the foot of the
Let’s get practical. How do you spark creativity? First, feed your creative side. Expose yourself to art, film, theatre and books. Soak up the things that inspire you and fill you with awe. Gather a team that is passionate about creative communication of the gospel. Give your mind time and space – my best ideas come in the shower! Dream through the service. What emotions do you want people to feel throughout the worship time (e.g. peace, anger, wonder)? Can you craft experiences using video, song, visual images to help move souls in the direction of God? How can you get out of the way and let God do His work? Can you encourage reflection using silence or instrumental music? This process takes time, work and planning, but wonderful things can be achieved; for even a brief moment, the physical world can melt away and we get a glimpse of eternity and our hearts ache with longing for God’s coming perfect creation where we will find our home.
Quarterly Issue 04 October 2011
Marcy Paynter
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a taste of the transcendent
don’t wipe your tears away don’t smother them with tissues let them streak and splash and soak in wear them like jewels don’t try to blink your tears away let them sit in your eyes let them sit in your eyes and you will see the ocean let them spill out naturally waterfalling down your face ‘til they lap the shores of your lips lick them and you will taste the ocean! but you won’t sink you won’t drown these tears will keep you afloat lie back lie right back and let the trickling tears tickle your ears
This is an excerpt from poet Cameron Semmens’ book Through The Lover’s Window. An account of one man’s passage through the end of one relationship and the beginning of another: the loving, the losing and the learning. Both raw and refined this universal tale is told with hope and insight.
learning to read again Cheryl Catford-McCallum It appears a lot of people are not reading their Bibles. Apart from the ‘new-borns’, fired by the Holy Spirit, devouring the Word at every opportunity, the rest of us are struggling to find motivation to open the book let alone regularly and systematically read it.
We claim we are too busy with our jobs, our family, our social life, our church, but if we are really honest some of us just are not interested. Sure we know we should be reading, but if you have spent a few years in the church you feel you have heard all the good stories. Reading them again seems boring and irrelevant to life as we know it. We need to inject some creativity into our Bible reading and study. At the same time we want to ensure that we remain true to the meaning the original authors intended. Our pride, our circumstances, our desires and our prejudices can warp the message of the text and too quickly we reduce the challenge of the Bible to a confirmation of what we want to hear. If we claim the Bible to be authoritative we must allow it to challenge our lives and have authority over us. Much of biblical study has been reduced to ‘what do you think this says?’, leaving it open to personal agendas and manipulation.
Here are some thoughts on how we can reengage with the Bible creatively. First, approach the Bible as a library rather than the latest John Grisham novel. When we browse the shelves of our local library we encounter different authors, different types of literature and different times of writing. This diversity allows us to enjoy a book of poetry and then a fictional novel and then a biography. In the same way we can add some creativity to our bible reading by choosing from a variety of books over time instead of trying to plough from Genesis to Revelation and giving up by the third chapter of Leviticus. Over the course of a year we can be walking with Jesus in the gospels, listening to the Old Testament prophets, grappling with the epistles, pondering the Proverbs, joining with the psalmist in soaring poetry or puzzling over the Book of Revelation. Second, consciously link everything you read in the Bible to ‘the Big Story’. There is a biblical meta-narrative that links creation, the fall, the redemptive plan of God
unfolding through the history of Israel and finding its climax in the Cross, and the restoration of humanity and creation until the final consummation. In this postmodern world the idea of an overarching story under which everything else is linked is dismissed; the only stories are personal and local and each story is as valid as the other. Every time we read the Bible we must seek to locate what we read in the overall narrative. We are then able to move from the Sunday-school concept of a series of disjointed ‘stories with a moral’ to appreciate the important themes and movements in the interaction between God and his creation. This can be an exciting and rewarding adventure as we look at the Bible from this different perspective. Thirdly, understand the Bible is not all about you! So often we approach the Bible almost as a personal ‘magic’ book. We open up at a random page, stab the text with a finger and assume that what we read is God’s private communication with us to answer our current situation. Our primary question is ‘what does this mean to me?’ In our desire for instantaneous application and relevance we forget that the Bible was not written simply to offer us personalised guidance. The Bible was written to reveal God – his ways, his character, his interactions with his people. Add to this the fact that we are not the primary audience of the text. It was the Hebrew people in the wilderness, the Israelites languishing in exile, the members of the fledgling New Testament church, who constituted the original audience of different writings. In order for us to gain insight into the biblical text we have to understand what it would have meant for the first hearers and readers and then what it means to us. The questions to ask are ‘what did it mean to them?’ and ‘what does this tell me about God?’ Fourthly, use an appropriate translation. No Christian in Australia could complain that there are no bibles available – my local bookstore has hundreds to choose from. However, many people struggle to read their bible because they are using a translation that is decades, if not centuries old and is using language that is no longer contemporary. It is common sense to read regularly from a variety of translations depending on your purpose for reading. Literal or more wooden translations are great for in depth study as they are close to the original languages but they can be difficult to read in large portions. Dynamic translations are great for expressing the message of the text in contemporary language and make excellent gifts for new Christians. Paraphrase bibles are a fun way to get another person’s perspective on the meaning of the text but are not advisable to use for study. A good exercise to do in a group is to gather a number of different translations and paraphrase bibles and read the same
Quarterly Issue 04 October 2011
Fifthly, we need to read the Bible actively. Active reading requires us to engage with the text rather than skim-read or passively allow the words to wash over us. It also requires us to be willing to hear the text afresh and anew, to have our preconceived notions challenged and even destroyed. When we have sat through a few hundred sermons and small group Bible studies we can find ourselves switching off from familiar texts because ‘we know what they say’. I was astounded to hear a worldrenowned biblical scholar admit that after forty years of studying the bible there were still times when he changed his mind over what he
Lastly, employ creative ways of studying the Bible. We might be able to lose weight by just eating bananas for a month but it’s unlikely we will be able to endure the monotony to achieve the desired goal. Likewise, while I am a great exponent of working through biblical books systematically examining consecutive passages, we need to employ other creative ways of engaging with the Bible. Try recreating life in Jerusalem in the time of Jesus with each person role-playing a specific group such as the Pharisees, Roman soldiers or tax-collectors. You can choose a geographic place in the Bible such as the town of Dan and trace it through Israel’s history. You might examine the life of a biblical character – Jacob, Miriam or Dorcas. Compare leadership styles between David and Peter, dig into a series of Proverbs
Our pride, our circumstances, our desires and our prejudices can warp the message of the text and too quickly we reduce the challenge of the Bible to a confirmation of what we want to hear. thought simply as a result of humbly being willing to look and hear it afresh. Active reading involves seeing what the text actually says, asking questions of the text, exploring the cultural setting, determining the context in the rest of the book, and finally carefully and thoughtfully applying the message of the text to today. Active reading is hard work, it requires effort and persistence but the rewards are stunning – an excitement and exuberance as the Word comes alive.
and discuss their application, try and decipher a group of Levitical laws and determine what they reveal about God’s character. The possibilities are endless. Passionately committed to the Bible and the message it brings to our world, we have the task of creatively engaging others in a commitment to read and study God’s word. The task is neither simple nor clear but, if we approach it with open hearts, imaginative minds and careful practice we will see fruit.
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passage – preferably a familiar psalm or something similar. You will be astounded at how the variety brings the passage to life again.
Changing the creative conversation Cory Maxwell-Coghlan
“The imitator dooms himself to hopeless mediocrity. The inventor did it because it was natural to him, and so in him it has a charm. In the imitator, something else is natural, and he bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man’s.” — Ralph Waldo Emerson There is an emerging trend within evangelical discourse that deplores creative copycatting and exalts the ideal of originality. Such rhetoric rolls nicely off the tongue when it comes, as it so often does, from the mega-church pastors with creative resources at their disposal. But we can’t forget about the pastors of smaller flocks with shoestring budgets and limited resources. These guys make the charge of creative plagiarism seem like an unfair one considering the resource-gap. Nonetheless, spending more time researching the latest trends than actually setting them is admittedly counterproductive. What’s missing from this debate is a clear and precise definition of creativity and perhaps more importantly, the expectation of its agency within the church. Focusing on the latter, it increasingly appears that every idea or symbol in popular culture must be packaged and made consumable for the masses. This principle of commodification has slowly crept its way into the evangelical mindset, reducing the complexity of creativity to a marketable product, or the marketing tool for a product. The commodification of creativity can mask its intrinsic value. But the truth is, being creative doesn’t always mean that something needs to be produced, or that anything necessarily needs to be consumed. Sure, you can be innovative without being original, but that’s assuming our end goal is effectiveness.
Being creative doesn’t always mean that something needs to be produced, or that anything necessarily needs to be consumed. Creativity is an offering of worship to God and is within itself an end, rather than a means to an end. We mustn’t think too narrowly about creativity in the church, just in the same way that we have redefined the complex and multifaceted nature of worship within the narrow confines of music. True creativity lies not in the ability to churn out artistic products to be marketed and consumed, but rather the ability to imagine and initiate a church experience that captures and expresses uniqueness. The sum of a creative church is not its well designed website and impressive videos, although these are all admirable things. It is how every facet of ministry celebrates the unique gifting and make-up of a congregation who God himself crafted in His abundant creativity.
As Emerson so eloquently states, to invent is to do what is natural, and so it has a charm, but the imitator bereaves himself of his own beauty, to come short of another man’s. The beauty is the creativity itself, not what creativity can do. Resourced or not, each church has the ability to create a unique environment based not on conformity and imitation, but on the celebration of authenticity and individuality. Originality, innovation, and even effectiveness become inevitable by-products of creative imagination. Whether you’re a mega-church or a tiny home church, your apparent lack of resources becomes a moot point. Creativity in these terms becomes accessible and creates a level playing field. It transcends budgets or resources, and it changes the conversation. Instead of trying
True creativity lies not in the ability to churn out artistic products to be marketed and consumed, but rather the ability to imagine and initiate a church experience that captures and expresses uniqueness. Copycatting begets conformity, and conformity must be avoided like the plague. There’s no need to peek over the fence at the church down the road; leave them to their own devices. Their successes will be as unique and natural as the journey they walked to achieve them, and as such will bear a charm. There is no formula to appropriate, and no ‘how-to’ guide to follow. Imitation just leaves us with the tragedy of unrealised potential, like if Beethoven decided to stick to the safety of Mozart and never compose a work of his own.
to keep up with the church of the Joneses, we must dare to dream, imagine, create, invent and inspire. It is with this pioneering spirit that we can begin to create an authentic story whose likeness is nothing but our own and of whose beauty we are not bereaved.
“An invasion of armies can be resisted, but not the idea whose time has come” — Victor Hugo
incredible risks people were prepared to take in response to the Creator and his new work through Jesus and those who would be brave enough to follow him.
When was the last time you did something different in your ministry? I mean truly different? I’m not talking about a tweak on the status quo or a slight adjustment on a preexisting thing, I mean a brand new idea that you dreamed up and then committed time to implement.
I wonder if our image conscious age has affected our ability to take innovate and creative risks? Undoubtedly it would seem that risk has become a four-letter word! It could be argued that we have replaced our creative yearning with market research, popular opinion, and
If we are looking for perfection in our creativity (by the world’s standards) we are missing the point. Creativity is meant to be experienced first hand as much as it is observed. We are meant to create because within this process we can discover that which is truly original, that which reflects the beauty and imagination of The Creator. This unique expression of the true self is in essence innovative. No one has done it before, it is inspired and it cannot be replicated as it is first experienced.
Creativity is meant to be experienced first hand as much as it is observed. I often ask youth leaders and teams that exact question, and you might be surprised to know that most of the time the answer to that question is ‘never’. Even more interesting is that many don’t actually see this as a problem. I hear leaders regularly tout the words of Solomon ‘there is nothing new under the sun…’ as if to find some kind of comfort or solace in the realisation they are void of the responsibility to dream the impossible, or to initiate a unique and alternative response to the myriad of issues young people face today. It would appear that our culture’s ‘cookie cutter’ approach to living has informed the way we do ministry with youth and young adults, that we have forgotten the place of innovation and creativity in ministry. Personally, I find this really disconcerting. It leaves me pondering ‘what happened?’ When I consider the early church and the creativity and innovation that they employed for the sake of the gospel and the survival of the church, I can only wonder why we are so reticent to do the same. There are countless stories in scripture of people pursuing the impossible, displaying incredible innovation and creativity, and seeing God work as a result. As I read through the gospels and the Acts of the Apostles I am constantly confronted with the
projections of estimated outcomes. Innovation is deemed too risky if this holy trinity of marketing is not in alignment, willing us to continue. Perhaps another problem is our incessant pursuit of ‘perfection’. The truly innovative is sometimes distorted as perfection is pursued with vigor. Creativity and innovation are usually far from perfect. It can be a messy and sometimes immeasurable process. As a result the average person finds it very difficult to put themselves out-there and attempt something that might come off as less than perfect. And who can blame them? After all we are bombarded daily by high quality creativity (music, art, fashion, movies, technology). We have come to believe that something with humble beginnings or less than perfect is not worth pursuing. Ironically any form of art that makes it to screen, airwaves or stage has been rehearsed, tested, tried and refined to the point of perfection; very rarely does anything new begin perfectly. I wonder if the influence of the must-fit-in culture of our age demands we take on a persona that is tried, tested and current. It appears this is as much an epidemic in ministry as it is in popular culture.
The ministry we are entrusted with invites us to enter the creative mind of God and partner with him to see his kingdom come. It is important to learn to think this way because your ministry will be faced with future challenges that current forms of thinking are simply inadequate to address. The core values and ministry priorities may not change, but the method will change in response to context, which changes rapidly in our developing culture. Indeed one cannot solve a problem with the same mode of thinking that helped to create the problem in the first place! It will require a new set of eyes, a new way of thinking, and a different approach altogether. To ignite a spark into a flame one needs an environment that will allow the elements to work together. One of the best ways to begin the process of creative expression is to spend time with fellow imagineers. Those who will dream with you and encourage you to take risks for his sake. Maybe it is time you for you to put aside time and energy to explore some new possibilities? Brenton Killeen is Director of National Youth Ministers Convention a great place to connect with other youth ministers and hear from people who are creative and innovative in their practice.
Quarterly Issue 04 October 2011
Brenton Killeen
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RISK HAS BECOME A FOUR LETTER WORD
State youth games Nick Waring - SYG Director
State Youth Games 2011 was one to remember! For one sunny weekend in June 3000 young people swamped Larder Park in Warragul for the 21st annual SYG.
People threw themselves in to the 30 different sports on offer utilising virtually every sports venue in a 30km radius. Over 70 churches from many different traditions came together to participate in the event, some traveling up to 6 hours to be part of it.
The event kicked off on Friday night with an exceptionally creative opening ceremony with the theme and message ‘get off the bench!’, this issued a challenge and built up everyone’s anticipation for the weekend, many hailed it the best SYG opening ceremony ever. Bucking the trend of other years, throughout the weekend Lardner Park was covered in beautiful warm sunshine which made for an incredibly enjoyable and relaxing weekend in the great outdoors. Each night the troops gathered across two evening sessions to engage in worship with the YV band and hear from the incredible Mike Pilavachi. Mike’s message proved to be an incredible challenge and encouragement with many making a public declaration of their decision to follow Jesus. It was a huge blessing to us all to have Mike share with us and to know the huge difference his messages made in so many young lives. As always, the spirit of the event was incredible with many stories of sportsmanship and unity shared throughout the weekend. Often this generous spirit
showed up in the simplest ways – opposing teams letting the younger team win, strangers showing others the rules, people forfeiting games to assist those who had been injured. Whilst we’ve all been guilty of getting a little too competitive at SYG, it is exciting to see so many groups seeing SYG as an opportunity to teach their young people what it looks like to be like Jesus in every situation. One great story, among many that I heard, was from Footscray Church of Christ. They brought 8 kids who were connected with their youth group but had never made any commitment to Jesus. On the second night, when Mike Pilavachi asked if anyone wanted to step into relationship with Jesus, 7 of those 8 kids went down the front. When their youth pastor asked the 8th kid if she wanted to go down the front to make that same commitment with her friends, she replied that she didn’t need to as she had already made that commitment that weekend. Those are the stories that make SYG worthwhile. The local media took particular interest in this year’s world record attempt – the largest air guitar performance. Unfortunately, we fell just short of the numbers required to make the record, but for a first attempt it was a great effort and pretty darn funny too. Plans are already in motion to have another crack at a record next year. A big congratulations goes to the groups who made the most of the year’s event and experienced success – for some this was on the sporting field, but for most it was around relationships that were formed and new hope discovered. This kind of change doesn’t just happen. It happens because of the dedication, hard work and love of amazing volunteers, incredible pastors and committed youth leaders who have prayed for, served and simply been there for their young people over the years. Congratulations to all who were a part of SYG 2011.
RUSSELL CROXFORD AWARD Rank Church Points PpL Playing Sport
Average
1st
Hartwell Church of Christ
80
6
13.33
2nd
Balwyn Church of Christ
79
6
13.17
3rd
St Pauls Anglican Church
237
21
11.29
4th
Montmorency Community Church
361
34
10.62
5th
Box Hill Salvation Army
289
29
9.97
6th
Canterbury Gardens Community Church
300
32
9.38
7th
Doncaster Church of Christ
509
55
9.25
8th
Rope Factory Church
185
20
9.25
9th
Croydon Hills Baptist Church
180
20
9.00
10th
Syndal Baptist Church
762
92
8.28
1st
Syndal Baptist Church
762
2nd
Ringwood Church of Christ
619
3rd
Community Church Warragul
561
4th
Doncaster Church of Christ
509
5th
FUSE Youth
498
6th
One Community Church
456
7th
Diamond Valley Baptist Church
428
8th
Truth and Liberation Concern
405
9th
Montmorency Community Church
361
10th
York St Church of Christ
339
Medium churcheS Rank Church Points 1st
Montmorency Community Church
361
2nd
C’bury Gardens Community Church
300
3rd
Box Hill Salvation Army
289
4th
NewHope Baptist Church
257
5th
St Pauls Anglican Church
237
6th
Warragul Church of Christ
236
7th
Gateway Youth
234
8th
one2one Gillies St Church of Christ
226
9th
Young and the Res
214
10th
Chinese Christian Church of Victoria
194
SMALL churcheS Rank Church Points 1st
Rope Factory Church
185
2nd
Croydon Hills Baptist Church
180
3rd
Moreland City Salvation Army
165
4th
Werribee Church of Christ
117
5th
Liberty Christian Life Centre
100
6th
Evangelical Chinese Church
99
7th
Shepparton Baptist Church
96
8th
Hartwell Church of Christ
80
9th
Balwyn Church of Christ
79
10th
Odyssey Youth Group
77
Quarterly Issue 04 October 2011
Rank Church Points
p.19
OVERALL RESULTS
what’s on?
A 1st Floor, 582 Heidelburg Rd. Fairfield VIC 3078 P 03 9488 8800
Illuminate camp A camp for young people to experience the grandeur of the meta-narrative of the Bible. September 26-30 Adanac CYC, Yarra Junction $260 Register at vic.youthvision.org.au Contact YV office: 94888800, yv@churchesofchrist.org.au
National Youth Ministry Convention Our 2011 theme is ‘developing a youth ministry’ with a very exciting range of speakers: Mike Pilavachi (UK), Tony Campolo (USA), Daniel Strickland (CAN), and Billy Williams (AUS) October 5-8 The Twin Towers Resort, Gold Coast more details www.nymc.org.au Contact YV office: 94888800, yv@churchesofchrist.org.au
Victorian Youth Ministry Network Gathering At our final VYMN for the year we will be sharing stories about what has been happening in youth ministry across Victoria in 2011. October 27, Thursday, 1-4pm Location: TBA $10 for lunch (from 12:30pm) RSVP for catering essential Contact Jono Green - Youth Alpha Australia, 98998050, jono.green@alpha.org.au
W vic.youthvision.org.au E yv@churchesofchrist.org.au