Watership Down .. and the mission of God

One of the mythic literary tales involving liminality and communitas is Richard Adam’s Watership Down. Fiver, a small nervous rabbit, has a premonition something terrible is going to happen to their Sandleford warren. And he’s right; a housing developer is planning to build on their field. Fiver tells his brother Hazel and they try to warn their aging Chief Rabbit, to no avail—he doesn’t believe them. Hazel and Fiver decide they must leave, and are joined by other rabbits in their search for a new home. And no sooner than they have left, the bulldozers come and destroy the warrens and all the other rabbits. To cut the long story short, the adventure takes the rabbits out of the safety of their warrens where they do very un-rabbitlike things; like crossing rivers, fields, and roads. (Rabbits, like the hobbits in The Lord of the Rings, seldom travel far from their burrows.) At nights, out of their burrows, and feeling very insecure, they comfort and encourage each other by re-telling tales of the adventures of the great rabbit hero; El-Ahrairah and they are inspired by his story to continue their journey. They come across many other warrens and they try to warn them. They even get imprisoned and escape, but they eventually do get to Watership Down which becomes their new home, and once they find females to mate with, they settle down and start again.
Once again, this children’s fantasy accesses universally mythic ideas related to adventure, the role of danger in personal growth, leadership, communitas, and the innate capacity of life to adapt when threatened by mortal danger. To my mind, this myth-laced story challenges us to get out of our burrows because of the coming danger (the adaptive challenge) and do things that defy our all too human instincts to burrow down in denial and our middleclass penchant for safety and security. We are inspired for this task by re-telling of the dangerous stories of Jesus Christ, the martyrs, and the great witnesses of the faith who did exactly the same things. All our heroes are people, who refused to settle down, people who lived dangerously, and who by doing so significantly advanced the mission of God.

I was directed to Alan Hirsch's blog in an email from a friend. He said that it was worth pondering .. and it is! I've already found my old copy of the book and added it to the list of books to read in the January break.

"Sweet Revenge"

(Must be the end of the week. Another article sent to me)
Many people today (thankfully, not everyone) are experiencing what may feel like the worst of times. Their reactions to this, not surprisingly, include feelings of fear, hopelessness, helplessness and even despair. They want to hit back at those who have hurt them. They want ‘sweet revenge’.
Revenge can be defined as harm done to someone as a punishment for harm that they have done to you first. It’s sometimes called ‘sweet’ because, at least in prospect, it feels rather satisfying. The saying “revenge is sweet” stresses the pleasure you think you’ll feel from harming someone who has harmed you—from paying them back in kind.
Yet punishing others, especially when it’s irrational, is based purely on emotion, not reason. And revenge breeds revenge. The more your brain is activated by the anticipation of revenge, the more willing you become to act vengefully. The same, of course, is true of the person you inflict your revenge upon. You pay them back, they do the same to you and on it goes.
Why is revenge, the act of harming someone, ‘sweet’?
Dr. Edward Hallowell, psychiatrist and author of a book called Dare to Forgive: The Power of Letting Go and Moving On says there’s a simple reason for the rise of revenge. It’s because revenge satisfies. “It feels so good. It’s a wonderfully triumphant feeling.”
Brain-imaging studies indicate the brain centers that ‘light up’ when we experience pleasure, enjoyment and satisfaction also light up when we commit, or even consider, an act of revenge.
Brain-imaging studies indicate the brain centers that ‘light up’ when we experience pleasure, enjoyment and satisfaction also light up when we commit, or even consider, an act of revenge. We actually feel satisfaction when we punish others for what we consider to be their bad behavior. When engaging in vengeful thoughts or deeds, whether you actually act out your revenge or simply considers it, your brain’s pleasure centers are being stimulated.
Vengeful behavior is reactive and self-defeating
Revenge doesn’t come from thinking, but from the acting out of fear. In meting out punishment and visiting revenge on another, you may believe you are justified, but the rational part of your brain is scarcely involved. It’s your ancient, primitive reptilian brain—all fear-based instinctual reactivity—and your animal limbic brain, which generates ‘reasons’ based on protecting your turf and your emotional sense of selfhood. They’re in charge.
Angry, hurt people can easily come to feel like helpless victims, harmed by people and forces ‘out there’. That’s why, as they being sucked into the quicksand of victim consciousness, they feel the need to hit back at those they blame. Viewed from this emotionally-charged standpoint, revenge seems to be the only strategy that will give them back any sense of self-worth.
Many who seek revenge (in mind or in deed) live in an “if only” world. That is: “If only I could punish, remove or even annihilate (fill in the blank with an individual or individuals, a group or groups), then I would experience some happiness or satisfaction.”
The truth is that revenge is like a drug: the more you use it, the more of it you need next time to feel even mildly satisfied.
The truth is that revenge is like a drug: the more you use it, the more of it you need next time to feel even mildly satisfied. The ‘high’ it provides is fleeting. It offers no true peace or security. It’s needs are never-ending, like drug addict who needs to score one more fix, and then another. Revenge soon becomes a way of life—an endless, miserable, self-sabotaging, self-limiting obsession.
What’s real here?
When you feel angry and hurt, your perception easily gets disconnected from reality. You may project your feelings of hurt and outrage onto people ‘out there’ although the problem has been inside you all along. Maybe that person you so long to ‘pay back’ has nothing to do with your pain. Harming them may well gain you nothing. Unless you take the time to explore your inner feelings and emotions to look for the root causes of your anguish, you may be aiming at the wrong target. It’s all too easy to blame others and spend your energy fantasizing about revenge instead of curing the problem and getting back on track.
James Baldwin explains it well:
“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with [their own] pain.”
Moving towards a better solution
As Charlotte Bronte wrote: “Life appears to me too short to be spent in nursing animosity or registering wrong.” No one was born seeking revenge, so how do people come to indulge so much in blaming and being vengeful? How did they learn to want to punish others for their unhappiness and dissatisfaction with life?
Rather than blaming others and seeking revenge, you could choose to get in touch with your needs and deal with your issues yourself.
Rather than blaming others and seeking revenge, you could choose to get in touch with your needs and deal with your issues yourself. When you choose to take your life in your own hands, there’s no one to blame, no one to punish, no one with whom to get even. Only by moving from a place of vengeance to a place of taking back your power and control of your life will you ever stop experiencing yourself as a helpless victim.
Once you move your mental processing from the amygdala and limbic brain to the cortex—the level of the brain involved in thinking, problem-solving, goal-setting, and planning—you’ll be able to be less reactive and see the consequences of vengeful decisions before acting on them. The cortex also allows you to distinguish between feelings and facts. You’ll be able to let go of negativity and be more understanding and considerate: to act from having a conscience, not from emotional, unintelligent urges to violence.

Missional vs Attractional Church debate

(Another interesting piece sent my way)

So the whole missional vs. attractional church debate has risen to the bloggy surface yet once again sparked by Dan Kimball’s recent post on the Out of Ur blog. In the piece he questions the fruit of so-called missional churches because a few that he knows of anecdotally haven’t grown while attractional churches are making converts in droves. Since they aren’t making converts, they therefore are ineffectual. Being missional means squat apparently unless you are growing in numbers and the sins of attractional models are incidentally absolved since they are making converts. Others have questioned the reality of such conversions, and I especially liked Dave Fitch’s response on that account. But to the specific accusation that missional churches are ineffectual, I have to ask - at what?

According to Dan, effective churches are those which make (and continue to make) a lot of converts. I’m all for conversions, but what exactly are they being converted to? Is a conversion that professes the name of Christ, but is consumeristic and “me-centered” really the sort of conversions we want? It may be easy to attract people to that sort of faith, but to pull out the old phrase - what you call people with is what you call them to. What’s the point of “converting” people to American consumer culture with a Jesus veneer? Even if you desire that they will eventually change, why the bait n’ switch? But to write off the people who are attempting to give up all that in favor of self-sacrificial living because not enough people want to jump on that bandwagon simply astounds me. When did Christianity become a popularity contest? I know I’m being extreme and harsh with those questions, and in many ways I am a both/and sort of person in regards to this issue, but I was just really shocked to hear the missional church dismissed in such a way.

And of course I’m saying all this as a “failed” missional church planter. Failed in terms of numbers and money. We couldn’t attract enough people willing to give enough money to pay our salary and so the church failed. Yes, that’s crass, but that’s what happened. And it also totally misses the entire point of what the church actually was. We were a bunch of messy people working our butts off serving each other. We had people attending who really weren’t welcome in other churches because they were “too much work” or because they “asked the wrong questions” or because they just weren’t cool enough for the attractional churches. Our church became family to each other - opening our homes (literally) and seriously caring for each other and for our community. Throwing parties for the “poor” and the mentally disabled, working to improve the local environment, helping the struggling get back on their feet. No - not one person I know of “converted” because of the church, but a lot of people made decisions to follow Christ because of it. Decisions to not walk away from the faith, decisions to return to the faith, decisions to not just go through the churchy motions any longer, decisions to devote their lives to service. That failed missional church made some serious impact for the Kingdom.

So Dan, I just want to throw my anecdotal evidence right back atcha. Missional churches are effective. It all just depends on how you define effective.

Losing and Winning classes

(I'm getting interesting "bits" coming my way these days)

Warren Buffett: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/26/business/yourmoney/26every.html

Just because the days of children and labourers going down stinking coal mine shafts are over (in the West any way) does not mean that class warfare is not being waged, it is covert and representative democracy has tended to water down any sort of class consciousness that may have existed in the West.

What/who controls the economy, culture and politics? The ruling class, ie. capitalists. It is true that what it means to be "working class" has changed over the years, and there is some potential for members of the working class to gain capital through loans etc..however it is not possible to say that the middle class or small business owners have more influence over the economy, culture or politics than say Rupert Murdoch or major financial institutions.


Also, from the ABS
The share of the economy going to profits has hit the highest level since the ABS started keeping records in 1959, while the share allocated to wages has hit a new 43-year low, today's National Accounts data has revealed.

The data shows the "profits share" of the economy hit a new record high of 27.8% in trend terms, the greatest share going to profits since the ABS began collecting the data in the September quarter of 1959.

At the same time, the "wages share" of the economy fell to 52.7%

Just because the term "class war" seems cliched and old fashioned does not mean that it does not exist. It is a tragedy that the winning team (Warren Buffett and his friends) can see and wage this war. The losing classes are so over worked; stressed by mortgages and interest rates; distracted by reality TV and plasmas and caught up with celebrity style politics to the point that they pose no real challenge to the system. Workers are playing by the rules of the ruling class and are getting ripped off.

Fear in life ..

(Part of a post sent by a friend in the USA)

Fear is a natural part of everyone’s life. It only becomes a problem when it blocks you from being who you are and achieving what matters most to you. Many people fail to find their path in life because of fears of what might happen if they change, try something new, don’t agree to what others want or fail to follow the conventional path.
Most fears are groundless. Our minds are exceptionally good at imagining all the things that could go wrong. They call up images of embarrassment, criticism and even ruin. They assume whatever could go wrong will. Everyone will laugh. Maybe you’ll be demoted or fired—who knows? Understanding how what you value most produces your strongest fears can go a long way towards showing you which concerns are over-blown, even imaginary, and which you should take seriously.
Everything you are attached to produces a corresponding fear
The more strongly you value anything, the stronger the fear associated with it will be. That’s why high achievers, for example, are terrified of failure in any activity, however trivial.
When an attachment becomes too strong in your life—even an attachment to something positive—it’s on the way to becoming a major handicap.
When an attachment becomes too strong in your life—even an attachment to something positive—it’s on the way to becoming a major handicap. Achievement is a good example. It’s a powerful area of attachment for many successful people. They’ve built their lives on it. They have always achieved success in everything: school, sports, the arts, hobbies, work. Each fresh achievement adds to the power of their attachment and the central place of achievement in their lives.
Because of this, failure becomes unthinkable. They’ve probably never failed in anything they’ve done, so they have no experience of coping with it. The mere prospect of coming second frightens them. Failure becomes the supreme nightmare: a frightful horror they must avoid at any cost. Nothing—not ethics, not honesty, not other people, not even their nearest and dearest—can be allowed to come between them and the next achievement.
The collapse of ethical standards in major US corporations over recent years probably has more to do with fear of failure among long-term high-achievers than criminal intent. Many of the people at Enron and Arthur Andersen were supreme high-fliers, basking in their success and the flattery of others. Failure was an impossible prospect. They had to win every time. And if brutal working schedules and harrying subordinates wouldn’t ward off the prospect of ‘failure’, they were ready to lie, cheat, falsify numbers and hide anything negative to make themselves ‘winners’ in the eyes of the corporation and their rivals.


Beware of the very things you value most in your life
When your attachment to anything you value, however benign in itself, becomes too powerful, it will increase the chance that the corresponding fear will corrode your life and destroy your relationships from within. Over-achievers destroy their lives and the lives of those who work for them. People too attached to ‘goodness’ and morality become self-righteous bigots. Those whose desire to build close relationships become unbalanced slide into smothering their friends and family with constant expressions of affection and demands for ever greater love in return.
Balance counts for more than you think. Some tartness must season the sweetest dish. A little selfishness is valuable even in the most caring person. And a little failure is essential to preserve everyone’s perspective on success. Are you a positive person? Maybe you need to cherish the negative parts too.

Another perspective on the current "world financial crisis"

In the Notes from the Editors for the September issue of Monthly Review (written in late July) we asked why, with the United States bailing out the financial sector of the economy to the tune of hundreds of billions of dollars, there was no public outrage. As we observed at that time, “In the end there seems to be no satisfactory explanation for lack of popular protest over a series of ad hoc grants showering hundreds of billions of dollars of public money on the masters of finance, collectively the richest group of capitalists on the planet. And that raises the question: Is this outrage present nonetheless, growing underground, unheard and unseen? Will it suddenly burst forth, like some old mole, unforeseen and in ways unimagined?” The collapse of Lehman Brothers on September 15, the resulting freezing up of credit markets, U.S. Secretary of Treasury Henry Paulson’s emergency plan for a $700 billion bailout of financial firms, offering “cash for trash,” i.e., proposing to buy up the toxic waste of virtually worthless mortgage-backed securities at taxpayer expense—quickly answered our question. When the U.S. Treasury got into the act with its bailout proposal, requiring Congressional authorization (previously the Federal Reserve had led the way in bailouts, to the point that treasury securities had sunk to just over half of the Fed’s assets, as we explained in September), all hell finally broke loose. Suddenly, the public outrage that had been growing beneath the surface burst forth. The U.S. capitalist class was abruptly confronted with a major political as well as economic crisis.

The visible anger of the population over the bailout plan did not stop the Treasury Department, the Congressional leadership, the president, and the two presidential candidates—together with financial capital—from going ahead and patching together a deal based largely on the original Paulson proposal. What was completely unexpected, however, was the revolt in the House of Representatives on September 29 with 133 Republicans and 95 Democrats voting down the $700 billion bailout package, leading to the largest one-day point drop in U.S. stock market history. To be sure, the powers that be soon had their way, and a version of the Treasury Department proposal, with added elements designed to provide political cover for representatives who switched their votes, was soon passed. But the initial revolt in the House forever changed the nature of the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, making it overtly politicalfor the first time, and leaving a legacy of popular dissent. The politicization of the bailout issue and the increasingly desperate economic conditions guarantee that the longer-term consequences for U.S. capitalism will be immense.

No one has a crystal ball to look into the future, and the nature of this crisis makes it impossible to predict what will happen next. But a few things seem obvious. First, the bailout to be carried out by the Treasury Department, though massive, will at best only stop an immediate meltdown. It will not bring the financial crisis to a close. The genie of financialization is out of the bottle and it is going to take time to get it back in again. The crisis of housing and mortgage lending has not in any way abated. The Federal Reserve and other agents of the federal government had already poured more than the $700 billion bailout package (including home mortgage rescues) into the financial system over the previous year in the form of loans, guarantees, swaps, giveaways, and takeovers (“A Tally of Federal Rescues,” New York Times, September 28, 2008; “Treasury and Fed Looking at Options,” New York Times, September 29, 2008). Moving rapidly from a lender of last resort to an investor of last resort, the federal government has enormously stretched its resources—already under strain due to the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

Second, the rapid decline in U.S. economic hegemony is now obvious to the entire world and is likely to impair the willingness of foreign investors and governments to take dollars—necessary to finance the growing U.S. debt. International pressure is growing to prevent Washington from exporting its crisis abroad. Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has demanded that Latin American, African, and Asian states not be made into “victims of the casino erected by the American economy” (“U.S. Crisis Deepens Divisions in S. America,” Washington Post, October 1, 2008). Indeed, U.S. imperialism is visibly weakening everywhere—despite $1 trillion of actual U.S. military expenditures in 2007 alone (see “The U.S. Imperial Triangle and Military Spending,” Monthly Review, October 2008).

Third, the real problem is still not being addressed: the stagnation of the U.S. (and advanced capitalist) economy. This is not so much an effect of financial crisis, as commonly supposed, as the cause of the vast growth of the financial superstructure in the first place—and why the bursting of the financial bubble is such an immense and currently insurmountable disaster (see “The Financialization of Capital and the Crisis,” MR, April 2008). The stagnation of production, symbolized by the recent $25 billion in federal loan guarantees to the big automakers, has received relatively little attention in the face of the astronomical financial crisis, but remains at the heart of the economic malaise.

Finally, it is now sinking deep into the public consciousness in the United States that the most important question in the end is: Who will pay? The bailout deal skirted the issue by leaving it up to the next president to come up with a way to compensate the public for losses from the Treasury’s buying up of financial toxic waste. What this means is that the real political battle has only just begun.

If these are the main dimensions of the problem, what should U.S. leftists do at this point? This is not an easy question to answer. It is not our job to fix their system. Nor in fact is it fixable. As Harry Magdoff and Paul Sweezy argued in 1988 in the aftermath of the 1987 stock market crisis, this is, judged from the longer-view, an Irreversible Crisis. There are therefore no visible solutions. Under these circumstances the emphasis should be on reducing inequality, strengthening the position of workers, providing decent jobs for people doing the work for which they are equipped, and guaranteeing such social essentials as: adequate health care, nutrition, housing, education, Social Security, retirement pensions, and environmental protection. Military spending should be cut drastically and used to fund needed social programs. A tax on securities trading and ideally a wealth tax should be imposed. Such things can only be achieved, however, if the population rises up and demands control over the political economy. Again, we should not pretend for a moment that any of this would repair what is wrong with the capitalist system. It would not. But some such set of measures is necessary to create a better life for the vast majority of the population, and as a step away from capitalism and toward a better socioeconomic alternative.

Certainly, there is something to be said for the view of U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio (D-OR) when he wrote in response to the Paulson bailout(“Wall Street Bailout Won’t Help Main Street,” Eugene Register-Guard, September 29, 2008): “In President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration, we invested in building roads, bridges, hydroelectric dams and other public works projects to rebuild our nation’s broken economy.” DeFazio went on to argue that if a bailout plan was to be adopted it should be paid for by a securities transfer tax, such as actually existed in the United States from 1914 to 1966. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has proposed a five year, 10 percent surtax on individuals with incomes of more than $500,000 a year and of households with incomes of more than $1 million a year. None of this would solve the core contradictions of the system. But such actions would represent a start in the right direction. It is high time that in the relentless class war that has been waged by the capitalist class against the working class since the early 1970s, the U.S. populace at last begins to fight back en masse, insisting that their needs be met. In much of the rest of the world of course the continued existence of the U.S. dominated order of monopoly-finance capital, commonly identified as neoliberalism, is already—or soon will be—under challenge.

Not fitting in

I found these few snippets the other day.

You don't fit and that's your gift

It reminds me of a marshall macluhan quote - the role of the artist is to create an anti-environment as a means of perception and adjustment.
There are lots of artists, prophets, creatives, entrepreneurs, and change agents for whom this is true and it is why they are able to do what they do. Cultures need people that don't fit - it's how things get moved on when they get stuck.

It's all about being "contextual"!?

The following came from an excerpt in Craig Mitchell's blog. I too have been "banging on" about being contextual. Seemingly for ever. I keep trying to tell folk that our life as a congregation in Jetty Rd. Glenelg cannot be anything but contextual if we are to be a church and not a museum.

Aptitudes of Spirit-Led Missional Congregations in Context
1. Spirit-led missional congregations learn to read a context as they seek their contextuality.
2. Spirit-led missional congregations anticipate new insights into the gospel.
3. Spirit-led missional congregations anticipate reciprocity.
4. Spirit-led missional congregations understand they are contextual and, therefore, particular.
5. Spirit-led missional congregations understand that ministry is always contextual and, therefore, is also practical.
6. Spirit-led missional congregations understand that doing theology is always contextual and, therefore, is also perspectival.
7. Spirit-led missional congregations understand that organization is always contextual and, therefore, is also provisional.

Trust? Whatever happened to trust?

As I/we have watched the stock market continuing to grind lower, I feel something more may be at work. And that something centres on trust and credibility which, I believe, have been lacking in corporate and government leadership in recent years. Like the boy who cried wolf, corporate and regulatory officials have issued a lot of hogwash over the years. Until recently we investors were willing to believe it. Now we may not fall so easily into gullibility. Is it any surprise that virulent mistrust seems to own the markets now?
We know the old adage “Trust abused is trust destroyed”. Those who should have been stewards of other people’s money became salespeople for all manner of “shysters” whose aim was to enrich only themselves.
It’s obvious - we have to rebuild trust, starting by making sure each of us is trustworthy in whatever we do and say. Never mind pointing the finger at someone else. Start right where you are. If enough people are willing to do that, there’s still hope something good will come from this mess.

A piece from the forthcoming book "ReJesus" by Hirsch & Frost

Through Jesus’ eyes, the church is the sent people of God. A church is not a building or an organization. It is an organic collective of believers, centered on Jesus and sent out into the world to serve others in his name. When we are taken captive by the Nazarene carpenter, we can no longer see ourselves as participants in a similar system to the one he came to subvert. Not only does Jesus undermine temple theology by becoming the temple himself, but also he undermines the sacrificial system by dispensing with sin without reference to ceremonial washings, rituals, or liturgies (“Go in peace, your sins are forgiven”). As noted earlier, he also plays fast and loose with the legalism of Sabbath keeping. In fact, he subverts the whole religious system. So why would he do that simply to replace it with a Christian religious system? He doesn’t! He is antireligious, offering his followers direct access to the Father, forgiveness in his name, and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit. Therefore, to be reJesused is to come to the recognition that the church as the New Testament defines it is not a religious institution but rather a dynamic community of believers who participate in the way of Jesus and his work in this world.

We have become like human grafitti in search of empty walls

A paradox of narcissism in the 21st. century is that in our drive to be someone, to leave our stamp on the world, we have become like human graffiti in search of empty walls.

"Self takes precedence over commitment"

We run from those promises and covenants that humans have made to each other for thousands of years because they frighten us to death. Many today fear such commitment-based social institutions because self now takes precedence over commitment. As the worldview of hyperconsumerism has taken hold of our imaginations, everything has become shopping. We must not become entangled in commitments, because they could limit our options on finding something better. This constant search for something better means that the supershoppers of hyperconsumerism are still waiting for a better deal after the mall has closed and then are forced to return home empty-handed. Or we find ourselves always on the move, searching for a home that shifts and shimmies over the horizon. We keep up this restlessness as our fears of not being stimulated take over.

The key to life, we are told, is to keep holding out for that perfect bargain. But the less we commit, the more we become passive. We never make a move; instead, we simply stand and watch life go by. Our fear of commitment has turned us into passive consumers.”

(from the Blog of Mark Sayers)

"Everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself"?

From Tolstoy

Some interesting stuff from Jonny Baker's blog re worship

graham kendrick kicked off with a few thoughts. i jotted a few headlines from each speaker so some of graham's were

* when you look around when you are leading, not many people are singing. why?
* what began at the grassroots as a movement in worship is now more driven by the culture industries and that creates issues for worship in local contexts.
* the worship movement around modern worship songs has come from the 60s. a lot of what we see is still based on that and it has strengths and weaknesses. a weakness is that one personality fronts it.
* because the movement was recovering heart and feelings in worship, after a few decades have other things got lost?
* there is a tension between festivals (big experiences in worship) and how worship gets experienced in local churches. we have to understand these are different. worship leaders are the gatekeepers who should ensure this tension is handled.
* in song based worship we have lost the sense of story or journey through the whole of worship. need to recover it.
* 3.5 min pop song genre (where the modern worship song has its roots) has its weaknesses
* we have an issue around event dependence vs lifestyle
* psalms are a key to rediscover for a daily prayer and worship life
* tension between old and new. we are in danger of historical amnesia (i.e. we want the latest newest songs) at a time when culture is desperate for things with weight and roots.

mark earey, who i didn't really know, lectures at queens in birmingham in liturgy. his main critique was in response to the question 'where is jesus?' he suggested that the default for many is that jesus is encountered in singing in worship. so do we expect to meet jesus anywhere else? maybe that's our problem! he also raised questions about the use of technology in worship suggesting that the current cultural transition may have the depth of change about it that the shift to print did.

joel edwards, director of the evangelical alliance was excellent - i like him a lot. he brought a perspective from a pentecostal background. a few comments of his really stayed with me.

* worship has often been too cosy - a retreat from alienation rather than an engagement with pain.
* there is a new ecumenism where denominational ties and so on are not such a big deal.
* i thirst for something new. i am mostly bored. worship is narrow and predictible. is god vaguely bored too?

Again .. Tom Sine "The New Conspirators"

when Jesus began teaching he made it clear that his new empire would be unlike any empire the world had ever seen. it came on a donkey's back. it's imperial council was comprised of a handful of unemployed fishermen, a couple of IRS agents, a prostitute and some hangers on. Jesus demonstrated how to wield his imperial power by washing feet, telling stories and playing with kids. Jesus' empire is based on the absurd values that the last should be first, losers are winners, and the most influential in the empire should clean the toilets. members of the empire are instructed to love their enemies, forgive their friends, always give twice as much as people ask of them and never pursue power or position. Jesus insisted that those who are part of his empire shouldn't worry about finances, but simply trust god. the resources to run this empire were basins, towels, and leftover lunches. this empire also developed a reputation for constant partying - almost always with the wrong kind of people.

seriously is this any way to run an empire? imagine what would happen if you ran a political, economic or religious institution with these bizarre values. clearly it wouldn't have much of a future. these values might even get the leader assassinated...

The power of deficit thinking

(Sent from a friend)

The next time someone urges you to focus on the gap between where you are and where you hope to be, ignore them. You know the gap is there. It’s far better to focus on whatever success you’ve had in bridging that gap. That builds self-confidence and encourages you to take the risks needed to improve further. Focusing on what’s missing will encourage you to play safe to avoid still worse happening.

Deficit thinking is an ingrained habit of focusing on gaps and weaknesses. It’s focusing on what you can’t do, not what you can. Instead of your dreams and ambitions propelling you forward, you let the gap between your current state and your desires become a continual source of frustration and depression.

You would imagine this type of thinking would generally be discouraged, but you’d be wrong. It’s everywhere, because people suffer from the mistaken belief that paying attention all the time to the gaps between what you have and what you think you want will be motivating. It will propel you forward to fill the gap.

That may be true for some people, but for most the effect is the opposite. Faced with continually falling short of what’s supposed to be attainable, they give up — and then feel even worse for having done so.

Besides, many of the other ‘gaps’ are there because, deep down, what they represent isn’t you. You don’t want to be different or ‘better’ in that precise way; it’s other people who tell you that you ought to do it. They want you to change to suit their agendas, and you go along — at least on the surface — because it’s polite, or socially desirable, or you wish that you could agree with them (only you don’t). This gives you almost zero real motivation to change. As a result, you talk a great talk about whatever it is, yet never quite seem to be able to turn the talk into effective action. If you truly wanted to change — or give up whatever it is — you would find a way to do it, believe me.

The error of rivalry

I was speaking with leaders of the congregation I serve about how we view ourselves with respect to the other UCA not too far away. I came across these reflections from "business".

The trouble is that human competition is more in the nature of rivalry. We are obsessed by the behaviour of our competitors, which is not the same thing as being seized by a desire to win the comp.

The first rule of business success is to focus on the customer, not your competitors. But rivalry is all about focusing on your rivals, on what they are doing and what you must do in response to what they do.

There are more than enough "customers" for us and every other church. What we in our congregation need to do is to not put our focus on what the others are doing but, rather, what is God calling us to be and do with the varied constituency passing by our doorstep. Trying to be like, match,etc. our rivals will sink us. In many ways we cannot compete with the new buildings and so on. But we have lots going for us. Let's go with the lots we have!

Commodification - yes or no?

Again I've been in discussion with people in the newly formed UCA close by that I've referred to in previous posts. Again the conversation went along the way of them being the form (building?) for the future & we (heritage church building) being that of yesterday. I've also spoken with an acquaintance in another area looking to rationalize buildings, bring together congregations, re-form worship, mission, etc. And the more I engage in such conversations the more the following, which is part of a review of Peter Ward's book "Liquid Church" comes true. The reason why I refer to said book & review is because one of the ministers to whom I spoke referred me to it & spoke so glowingly of what it had to say.

Special attention must be drawn to Ward's discussion of liquid church in consumer culture. Ward notes the church's function within an increasingly diverse and competitive spiritual marketplace and this has resulted in the commodification of the church as expressed, for example, in the Alpha Course in the U.K. (later exported to the U.S.) and "seeker" church approaches such as that of Willow Creek Community Church. Ward states that he believes that "commodification is essential for evangelism," and he provides an example from the "What Would Jesus Do?" or WWJD product marketing. Ward views this positively and states that "WWJD managed to incarnate Christ inside this fairly arid world [of fashion-conscious adolescence], and it did so by commodification."

In this area I must share my disagreement with Dr. Ward on multiple fronts. First, while it is true that the church has been shaped by consumerism and commodification within modernity, and to a certain extent there has been some benefit from the utilization of marketing aspects related to the seeker movement, it would seem that the modern church which is so often concerned about the dangers of syncretism has already been compromised by syncretism in its combination of consumer culture with its expressions of church in order to reach the seeker and its creation of an evangelical subculture that is consumer driven, as evidenced by the emphasis on programs, buildings, and the production of evangelical products for religious consumers inside and outside the church.

Second, I find it hard to find much that is positive with the WWJD phenomenon, whether for adolescents, children or adults, and in my thinking this provides a negative example of commodification rather than a positive example of penetrating the culture. Perhaps it would have been more appropriate and beneficial to have our lifestyles of service and self-denial serve as our personal identifiers of connection with Jesus rather than WWJD bracelets.

Third, I strongly disagree with Ward's contention that commodification is essential for evangelism. Instead of commodification we ought to be considering contextualization

....

From Craig Mitchell

Craig Mitchell is on study leave o'seas & posted this on his blog. Paragraphs 2 & 3 are worthy of reflection.

why am I here? my study leave is about exploring the place of 'new media' in immersive/interactive worship and education experiences/events, particularly in new/fringe/emerging faith communities where many existing boundaries are being reconsidered. basically, I think that the communication revolution has bypassed the church, and its one of many reasons that people under 40 don't connect with us.

the church is pre-occupied with oral delivery of literal culture. both our education of leaders and our congregational practices are based on this. and I'm coming to realise that our understandings of postmodernism underestimate the roles of communication and technology.

I think that the digital and communication revolution is much deeper and more pervasive than the church realises. we are either stuck in reactionary criticism of contemporary communication without understanding the issues or trialling entry-level appropriations that simply reinforce our current practices of power and interpretation.

So I want to find some ways forward by looking within the realm of visual culture, installation art, interactive media and immersive experience rather than being derogatory of such developments as the church so often is.

Leadership principles from Nelson Mandela

Mandela’s eight lessons are not always what you might expect:

1. Courage is not the absence of fear — it’s inspiring others to move beyond it. Most leaders have faced down fear, but it is during times of stress that the mettle of leadership is tested. This means maintaining the momentum in tough times; or, as Mandela explains, sometimes you must “put up a front.”

2. Lead from the front — but don’t leave your base behind. Mandela focused on a principle objective and employed any and all tactics required to achieve it. However, he always ensured that he brought his support base along with him. To achieve great things, it takes a village. As Richard Stengel writes in the Time article:
“He’s a historical man,” says Cyril Ramaphosa, former Secretary General of the African National Congress. “He was thinking way ahead of us. He has posterity in mind: How will they view what we’ve done?” Prison gave him the ability to take the long view. It had to; there was no other view possible. He was thinking in terms of not days and weeks but decades. He knew history was on his side, that the result was inevitable; it was just a question of how soon and how it would be achieved. “Things will be better in the long run,” he sometimes said. He always played for the long run.

3. Lead from the back — and let others believe they are in front. Be sure to read Mandela’s analogy on this point. While it appears contradictory, you will smile at the wisdom. Remember that leaders can actively assist in the growth of their supporters/teams. Like a herd of cattle, sometimes you can only point them in the right direction from behind.

4. Know your enemy — and learn about his favorite sport. Whether you are fighting against or negotiating with an opponent, your destiny is entwined. Finding a common ground for conversation, like sport, allows you a step inside another’s world view — and if you have to focus on one thing, make sure it is communication. It is the door to opportunity. Those that I know who have been in business for many years consistently say that communication is the one thing they wish that they themselves and those around them were better at.

5. Keep your friends close — and your rivals even closer. Mandela understood that “people act in their own interest,” and his approach to dealing with those he did not trust was to bring them into his confidence and neutralize them with charm. But should a crisis ensue, remember the STOP technique to help guide your decisions:
Make the story your own. Don’t leave it to others to tell what’s happening.
Set your own timeframe and make timeliness a critical part of your actions.
Stay objective. If you don’t know the answer to a question, don’t speculate or make assumptions. Find the facts.
Sometimes a crisis needs the help of a professional. Reach out to those you trust.

6. Appearances matter — and remember to smile. Our personal iconographies are important: the way that we carry ourselves, the way we walk into a room, the manner with which we greet people and, of course, the clothes that we wear all tell a story. Mandela’s smile symbolized an inclusive, patient yet determined leader. Great things can be achieved with a little grace.

7. Nothing is black or white. As leaders we are often presented with two options — to decide one way or another. Mandela often asked “Why not both?” Again, the focus must remain on the outcome, not the tactics. If a choice has to be made, choose the most urgent of the issues.

8. Quitting is leading too. Not all of our decisions or initiatives will be successful. Leaders must make the difficult decision to cancel or back away from poorly performing projects. Mandela also clearly retired as a way to establish a precedent across Africa — staying long enough to set the course, but not staying on to “steer the ship.” Sometimes leaders must concede to win. Taking one step back may just be the fastest way to your desired goal.

Post-Y generation

… there is one school of thought that says Gen Y is all about a strong having work-life balance, a personalised workplace, and a happy, motivated career, with a strong sense that what they are doing is important.
"A common theme throughout was the students' belief that their parents' generation worked too hard and that a work-life balance and the ability to start a family without one's career being affected were important prerequisites in determining the paths they would pursue."
… That same study suggests that Gen Y workers are running the risk of major disappointment, that 30 to 45 year olds suffered mid career depression and that 31-35 year olds were the most negative, topping the poll in every category, including 'feeling undervalued' (59%), being 'unfulfilled' (49%) and being 'de-motivated' (43%).
But the most interesting stuff is about the Post-Y generation, the ones born from 1995. And according to Tamara Erikson on the Harvard Business Review blog, they are significantly different from Gen Y, not to mention Gen X or their boomer grandparents.
For a start, they have come into a world where there are all sorts of problems and no easy solutions. "Most 12 year olds are very aware that the polar ice caps are melting and the march of the penguins is slowing to a halt," Erikson writes. "They know why the family is vacationing in the backyard this year and understand that the high gas prices are related to diminishing global supply of a commodity that has, in many ways, become the ubiquitous lubricant of American society over the past seventy years, since our trek to the suburbs began in the 1940s. Many understand that other resources are limited, as well. Their geography lessons have given them a sense of the vital role water plays in politics and our future. Whatever they or their parents think about the war in Iraq and the Middle East in general, it's likely that they have absorbed the complexity of the situation. I doubt they've heard anyone offering simple, quick solutions regardless of the direction in which one would prefer to head. It would have been almost impossible for them to escape the phrase "housing crisis," even though few, I suspect, understand how such a disaster came to be. Home ownership, an icon of past generations' goals, suddenly looks less worthy, now a risky proposition."
It's important to remember they are coming into a world where the economic conditions are likely to be more constrained. And that will shape their thinking.
(from "Management Line" in "The Age")

Just had to "blog" this

The results of the cultural indoctrination stakes are not yet in but there is a definite trend — triviality leads, followed closely by superficiality and mindless distraction. Vanity looks great while profundity is bringing up the rear. Pettiness is powering ahead, along with passivity and indifference. Curiosity lost interest, wisdom was scratched and critical thought had to be put down. Ego is running wild. Attention span continues to shorten and no one is betting on survival.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. Half a century ago, humanistic thinkers were heralding a great awakening that would usher in a golden age of enlightened living. People such as Erich Fromm, Carl Rogers, Abraham Maslow, Rollo May and Viktor Frankl were laying the groundwork for a new social order distinguished by raised consciousness, depth of purpose and ethical refinement. This tantalising vision was the antithesis of our society of blinkered narcissists and hypnogogic materialists. Dumbness was not our destiny. Planetary annihilation was not the plan. By the 21st century, we were supposed to be the rarefied "people of tomorrow", inhabiting a sagacious and wholesome world.

Erich Fromm's 1955 tome, The Sane Society, signalled the debut of the one-dimensional "marketing character" — a robotic, all-consuming creature, "well-fed, well-entertained … passive, unalive and lacking in feeling".

But Fromm was also confident that we would avoid further descent into the fatuous. He forecast a utopian society based on "humanistic communitarianism" that would nurture our higher "existential needs".
(from Triumph of the trivial life by John Schumaker in "The Age" 19/07/08)

There are no approaches to leadership that will always be successful, and none that will always fail

Despite all the books, articles and other media folk trying to prove otherwise, leadership is not a science. There are no ‘laws’ that apply in every circumstance — or even most of them. There are no approaches to leadership that will always be successful, and none that will always fail. Those writers who use anecdotes, rathe than evidence, to support their own preconceptions will always find situations in which every flavor of leadership has triumphed — just as every one has been a disaster at some point. As in anything that concerns human beings, the complexity of causes and effects that produce achievement or failure are so numerous and interlocking that they pretty much defy any kind of analysis.

Leadership isn’t even close to being a science, but it certainly draws heavily on ideas from the social sciences. You can also see continual attempts to derive ‘laws’ for leaders to follow, whether these come from statistical analysis, anecdotal evidence, or the erroneous belief that following what the ‘great men’ of the past did can produce success today.
All such attempts have this in common: they assume laws or principles which can more or less guarantee success.
All such attempts have this in common: they assume that analysis and categorization can produce laws or principles which, if followed faithfully, can more or less guarantee success in most circumstances. New and inexperienced leaders crave such guidance. Ineffective leaders are told to improve their leadership skills or face a doubtful future. There is a large industry of trainers, coaches and consultants, many of whom are dedicated to the notion that they both know what makes for successful leadership and can teach it to others.
It doesn’t work, any more than the legion of economists have been able to keep us from boom and bust. That much is plain. The interesting point is to ask why and see what we can learn from the answers.
Humankind cannot bear too much of reality
In an area of knowledge like physics or chemistry, people have studied the processes involved for many years, categorizing their findings and producing ‘laws’ which are often highly accurate in predicting future events. The law of gravity states that all objects will drop towards the surface of the earth. We don’t expect that to change. We can calculate future events based on that knowledge and we will usually be right.
Some common processes are simply too complex and variable to allow for accurate forecasting.
Yet, even in the hard sciences, some common processes are simply too complex and variable to allow for accurate forecasting. The weather is a good example. While the ‘laws’ that drive the world’s weather are well known, it has proved impossible to make forecasts for more than few days ahead — and even those are sometimes wildly inaccurate. The weather is both too complex and too subject to random inputs.
Weather forecasting is a good analogy for leadership
We want to know what the weather will bring, so that we can plan ahead and avoid our picnic, vacation, sporting event or whatever being spoiled by a storm. Organizations want leaders to be able to do the same thing for the storms of business: to provide steady, predictable profits without nasty surprises or unexpected setbacks. In both cases, people step up to offer what is required, even though it isn’t possible to do much better than Simon Jenkins’ goose entrails.
In any situation that relies on human choices and actions , the level of complexity is nearly infinite.
In any situation that relies on human choices and actions (and which business situations do not?), the level of complexity is nearly infinite. Economists dealt with this by basing their ‘laws’ and theories on an artificial creature: homo economicus — a person who always and infallibly acts in his or her own best economic interests. Their basis for doing this — other than to make any kind of ’scientific’ process like mathematical analysis feasible in their disciple — is the assumption that all the complexities will somehow cancel one another out. More recently, so-called behavioral economists have delighted in showing this to be nonsense, but have yet to produce a viable alternative. Similarly, many leaders have tended to assume that people are simple creatures whose behaviors can be manipulated by some blend of carrot and stick; while more ’scientific’ leaders have relied on the theories of the social sciences to produce sets of leadership traits or behaviors they can follow.
The reality is this: we all know that people’s motives and actions depend on as many different causes as there are people — more, since we change our minds constantly and often respond one way on one day and quite another the day after. This makes people’s actions even harder to predict than the weather. Sure, there are some broad probabilities we can usually rely on — it snows in the north in winter and is usually hot in the tropics — but the detail inevitably escapes us.
Leadership in reality
Leadership is just like that. We can recognize that some broad approaches to leadership, like blatant tyranny, tend to produce characteristic problems, but that hasn’t prevented some tyrants from being extraordinarily successful. Yet, just as you cannot explain the greatness of a Shakespeare or a Beethoven by means of set ‘laws’, you cannot say exactly why some leaders have achieved greatness in people’s eyes, despite being often vain and tyrannical (Napoleon), cold and disdainful (The Duke of Wellington), egotistical and devious (Julius Caesar), emotional and lustful (Catherine the Great), or interfering and bellicose (Churchill).
Leadership is an art, not a science. It depends mostly on sensitivity to circumstances, courage to face reality and a continual willingness to do whatever it takes to bring others along. Until we all recognize that and face our options accordingly, we’ll stay as far away as we are today from solving the world’s leadership (and economic) problems.

On from a Chinese proverb

There’s a Chinese proverb that goes something like this: “Tell me and I’ll forget; show me and I may remember; involve me and I’ll understand.” Leaders should know by now that people tend to resist change when it’s forced on them. “Telling” is what initiates the resistance. It causes those being told to spend their energy mostly on NOT doing what you’ve told them. Yet that resistance is not so much about the change; it’s all about being changed.

Some thoughts about one of today’s fetishes: setting clear life and career goals.

The conventional wisdom is that we all need clear and challenging goals for our lives; that life without goals is leads to failure and dissatisfaction. I wonder if this is correct? After all, many people give up on the goals they have set themselves. From New Year’s resolutions to ‘new me’ decisions, it’s goal setting that seems to lead to failure more often than to success.

Why should this be? Why should people find that giving themselves something to aim at leads to being in a worse position than when they started? Setting goals seems to be such a simple process. You take a look at yourself, decide what you want to change most, think about how to get started, then do it. What is it that goes wrong?
Here are some thoughts about potential pitfalls. They don’t happen to everyone, but they are definitely common enough to be worth avoiding.

Being unrealistic
I think this is the most common reason why so many people fail to meet their chosen goals and end up feeling worse than when they started. Their goals were never realistic. The targets demanded more effort, more motivation, more determination, more ability than the person had to offer. They were based either on wishful thinking or on whatever targets were fashionable at the moment.
Setting yourself unrealistic goals is the equivalent of picking a fist-fight with a professional boxer twice your size.
Setting yourself unrealistic goals is the equivalent of picking a fist-fight with a professional boxer twice your size. There’s only ever going to be one outcome. What’s uncertain is just how badly you’ll be hurt.
One of the greatest benefits of goal setting ought to be the opportunity to stand back and take a long, slow, realistic look at yourself. It’s odd how often people fail to do this. Instead, they get swept away by the nonsense about ‘big hairy, audacious goals’ being somehow the best kind. They believe the myth that aiming for the moon will somehow call up the skill and resources to get there.
Until you know exactly what you can do, and whether ’stretch’ goals motivate or intimidate you, it’s surely best to stick with things you know are within your capabilities. Far better to build success slowly and surely than risk everything on a single throw. Big bets lead to big losses — maybe on a scale you can’t really afford. If failure hurts badly enough, you may never try giving yourself a target in life again; and that would be far too high a cost to pay for getting it wrong once.

Who are you trying to impress?
It’s foolish to set yourself a goal that’s chosen mostly to look good or impress other people. It’s equally foolish to go along with whatever is fashionable, rather than stick to what truly matters to you. You’re setting goals for yourself, right? So who are you trying to impress?
Dieting probably offers the best example of what I mean. Many folk are overweight — I know I am. They ought to lose a few pounds, if only for the sake of their health. Yet the fashionable target for body size and shape is set by the media, especially for young women. The reality is that people’s natural body sizes and shapes vary as much as their height. Some are genetically programed to be tall and skinny, other smaller and more bulky. But when some super-model is the ideal being aimed at, the ordinary person is pretty much bound to fail.
Setting yourself a target that doesn't fit who you are and what you can reasonably achieve is always going to lead to tears.
The consequences of that failure can be anything between giving up on weight control totally to suffering eating disorders like bulimia or anorexia. In the same way, setting yourself a target that doesn’t fit who you are and what you can reasonably achieve is always going to lead to tears. You either won’t get close to making it or you’ll do so and be wretched as a result. Besides, creating goals aimed at impressing others will probably never get you sufficiently fired up to achieve what you say you planned. Guess what? Those other people weren’t impressed or even interested. They knew it was only hot air.

Keep quiet about your plans
I suspect that one of the worst mistakes you can make is to talk too much about what you aim to achieve. Some people say you should enlist friends to help keep you on track, but sounding off about your plans has much greater drawbacks.
Talking about your goals is a wonderful substitute for action. It feels like you're already there — only minus the effort.

First, talking about your goals is a wonderful substitute for action. Talk about your goals enough and it feels like you’re already there — only minus the effort. Of course you’re not; you’re no further forward, but lots of people manage to spend a lifetime talking about what they plan to do, yet do nothing at all.

Second, it encourages you to make statements that come back to haunt you. It draws attention to setbacks along the way. Rather than face the humiliation of admitting they went off track, many people prefer to give up. If they’d kept quiet, they could have put things right and pressed on, minus the embarrassment.
Third, it gives lots of people the chance to start in with their own stories, problems and advice. You have enough to cope with. You don’t need to hear how it went wrong for others, or how brilliantly they coped (with the silent suggestion you will never do as well as they did).

Too many goals, too few priorities
People often set themselves too many goals at once. They see everything as a priority, throwing themselves into change full of enthusiasm and excitement. When that wears off — as it surely will — they suddenly come up against the reality that have taken on much more than they can manage.
When everything is important, nothing is. You must prioritize or increase the risk of failure.
When everything is important, nothing is. You must prioritize or increase the risk of failure. Focus on what truly matters most — just one thing, if possible — and get it done. Then move on to the next. Success breeds success. Facing a mass of goals is so daunting, it’s no wonder most people give up.
I’m not suggesting that setting yourself goals in life is wrong; nor that some sort of objective can help you have a sense of direction and fulfillment. What I am suggesting is that you should approach both with care and deliberation. It’s easy to get it wrong and waste time and energy on something you’ll never attain. You don’t even need to have a long-term goal, let alone one that sounds tough or impressive.
All you really need in life is to go along, putting one foot in front of the other and doing whatever seems the next most important task. It won’t be flashy and it won’t impress the neighbors, but it might still give you a life worth living. Even small successes feel better than gigantic failures — and they can add up over a long enough time to achievements that you might well be proud of.

On a gloomy day ..

Increasing poverty, disease, and instability in many parts of the world, decreasing resources to support the one-sided prosperity of the industrialized world, major global threats such as climate change and possible technological disasters - none of these is likely to vanish because of some scientific breakthrough. Technological optimists assume that some unforeseeable invention will appear in time to solve every problem we face. Their more detailed projections look disturbingly like the well-known S. Harris cartoon in which a mathematician's blackboard proof contains a step labeled “then a miracle occurs.” Humanity, it must be admitted, has pulled off a good many miracles. But the challenges we face are so grave that it would be foolhardy to count on them in every instance.

It does not require any sophisticated social theory to grasp these threats. It makes only short-term economic sense to continue to expend a finite resource and create conditions that in just a few decades will measurably depress world productivity.

Yet we do nothing. The need for change may be obvious, but the culture of our age makes the obvious choice seem intolerably painful. Our insatiable demand for control of our lives, the enriched privation that demands to be fed with more and more goods - these feed a spiral of self-destructive consumption. Afraid we are nothing, we want everything. Severed from the ways in which we make ourselves, confronting our own creative power as an alien force that ceaselessly threatens to overwhelm our identities, we are driven to construct worlds of our own in which we can maintain the fragile illusion that we are independent beings.

So we use whatever comes to hand. Our DVD players, designer clothes, iphones, computers, framed diplomas, CD racks, SUVs, on and on . They give pleasure, but they multiply incessantly because they are also the fragments we shore against the ruins of our common life. This endless hunger feeds the equally endless rapacity of constant economic growth. And the dread of our self-made isolation, the emotional impoverishment of our culture and the resigned belief in our own powerlessness will not change no matter how rational capitalist production becomes or how fair we make international trade.

We seem to be at an impasse. Changes in the political landscape is a mirage or the imposition of a fragmentary understanding of human activity that is mistaken for the whole. We are left with well-meaning democratic society, valuable and perhaps even essential within its limits, but unable to deliver us from the hunger at its heart, from the discontents Freud claimed were the price of civilization. A more human as well as a more equitable life: one in which we recognize ourselves in others, no longer afraid of the transformations of our mutual creativity or driven to construct a world of commodities in which to shelter from the world of commodity production, in which we might live more fully instead of living within ideas of life —have we no path there?

"Poetry is not a luxury" - following on from business jargon

‘The dichotomy between beauty and necessity has always been a false tension. Yet as a distraction, it has been extremely effective at crippling our power to bring full-bodied, earth-rending change. And those of us who are most intent on justice, those of us who are activists, and those of us who stand in the barrage of steady societal critique perhaps need to drink in more art than anyone else. In our line of work, the task of stoking our vision and constantly imagining possibilities is absolutely essential.

We can be so harsh and ascetic as we fling ourselves against the needs of the world. Art is accused of being bourgeois because much of the creation of art takes time and solitude and staring out the window. And how can we give ourselves permission to do that when people are starving and there is work to be done?

I think of Judas bemoaning the fragrant ointment that could have been sold to feed hundreds of hungry people but instead is poured in that single lavish, revolutionary gesture onto the head of Jesus. He views the profligate gesture as sin, and feeding the poor as the only good.

I know that voice. it comes from my own lips. But if we always see only those who are starving, we will continually wander the desert of the frantically working and overwhelmed. What we need - desperately - is to not be overwhelmed. And the single thing that keeps us from being overwhelmed is imagination…’

- taken from ‘How one justice-seeker was redeemed by beauty’, Dee Dee Risher, in Geez Magazine Spring ‘08 edition.

Business Jargon

I've been hearing people in the organisations to which I belong, including the Church, using more & more business jargon.
So, I did a quick on-line read of George Orwell's famous essay from the year I was born (1946) titled "Politics and the English Language"

Orwell argued that the aim of this sort of language was to mislead. "When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns, as it were, instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish squirting out ink". But if thought corrupted language, he said, language could also corrupt thought. "Every such phrase anaesthetises a portion of one's brain."

Mira Katbamna wrote recently in "The Guardian" that such language " ...can be a two-way street. I have to talk to a client about why we don't want to go ahead with their proposal, while making it sound like that's exactly what they proposed. Talking while saying nothing is bound to come in handy, so I dial the number and launch in. I refer to the perspective from 'my side of the desk', about how I am keen to ensure there are 'take-home actionables'. I point out that because we are 'singing from the same hymn sheet' we don't have to 'reinvent the wheel'. In fact, in order to 'make it happen' it might be better, just as a 'starter for 10' to 'park the issue' and then 'take it offline'. That way we'll get a 'helicopter view' before we do a 'proof-of-concept'. As the conversation continues, I realise that far from being a victim, my counterpart is a willing participant. He talks about the inappropriateness of an 'out-of-box solution'. Why we need to look at our learnings before we go any further. We agree that without increased granularity we can't decide if we have enough bandwidth. Ultimately, we agree to do nothing while making it sound like we are doing something."
So, how do you feel about the following?

.. low hanging fruit, pre-prepare, forward planning, in this space, go forward together, close of play, actioning, get all my ducks in a row, bandwidth, stakeholders, paradigm shift, cascading, challenge, in negative territory and drill down.

Add to that the buzzword bible that is trotted out at meetings. Jargon includes: on the same page, skin in the game, thought leadership, quality action team (QAT), paradigm shift, take that offline, out of the loop, go the extra mile, result-focused, client-focused, total quality, ballpark, ticks in boxes, value-add, touch base, core business, thinking outside the square, stretching the envelope, putting this one to bed, closing the loop, at the end of the day, hot button, interface, guesstimate, key players, killer apps, focus collectively as a group, user-friendly, bells and whistles, benchmark, declining core technology, slippery slide, fast track, win-win, game plan and human capital.

So, I came across real "snail mail"

The people at 'Boredom Research Labs’ have designed ‘the world’s first webmail service using real live snails.’

Yes you read that correctly.

Actually, the thinking behind the project, or at least post-event justification, is to slow technology down, as a form of discipline or meditation. You send your email in the normal way, and this is then stored in a device in the snail’s tank. When a snail, fitted with a RF chip, crawls by, the data is loaded onto the chip. When that snail eventually passes another device, the information is passed from the RF chip, and the mail is delivered as usual. You therefore have no idea when your message is going to eventually be delivered.

Utter fruitloops, completely mad, and the rest of it. But rather an interesting gesture.

(forwarded to me by a mate in UK)

Hirsch on "invisible fields" of organisations

In the last few decades, organizational behaviorists have begun to see that organizations themselves are laced with invisible fields composed of culture, values, vision, and ethics. “Each of these concepts describes a quality of organizational life that can be observed in behavior yet doesn’t exist anywhere independent of those behaviors.” They are invisible forces that affect behavior for good of for ill. We can ‘feel’ the vibe of an organization can’t we? Sometimes in a group of people, we feel obliged to behave in certain ways, even though no one has told us explicitly how to behave. To learn the impact of such fields, just look at what people are doing. They have picked up the messages, discerned what is truly valued, and shaped their behavior accordingly. So when the organizational field is filled with inconsistent messages, when contradictions inform the organizational culture, then invisible incongruities becomes visible through troubling behaviors.

Alan Hirsch again on "Leadership"

In our day I believe that the predominant, top-down, CEO concept of leadership has co-opted the apostolic so that many who claim apostolic title actually function like CEO’s. In the Scriptures the Suffering Servant/Jesus image informs and qualifies the apostolic role, not that of the Chief Executive Officer. Apostolic ministry draws its authority and power primarily from the idea of service, calling, and from moral, or spiritual, authority and not from positional authority. Perhaps a useful way of exploring the nature of apostolic authority is identify the distinctive form of leadership involved and see how this creates authority.

In a relationship based on ‘inspirational’ or ‘moral’ leadership both leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality by engaging each other on the basis of shared values, calling, and identity. It involves a relationship between leaders and followers in which each influences the other to pursue common objectives, with the aim of inspiring followers into becoming leaders in the own right. In other words, influence runs both ways. Inspirational leadership ultimately becomes genuinely moral when it raises the level of human conduct and ethical aspiration of both leaders and led, thus having a transformational effect on both. In this view, followers are persuaded to take action without threatening them or offering material incentives but rather by appealing to their values. They use moral persuasion rather than material reward to influence their followers, appealing rather to higher values and calling. This can be clearly seen in the way Jesus develops his disciples as well Paul’s relationship with Timothy, Titus, and the other members of his apostolic team. But it is forms the basis of his letters to the churches.

Perhaps we can best call this type of influence ‘greatness.’ To be a great leader in this sense is to inspire, to evoke, and to nurture something correspondingly great out of those who follow. Through an integrated life, great leaders remind their followers of what they can become if they too based their lives on a compassionate notion of humanity framed by higher moral vision of the world in which we live. We seldom call a leader with significant technical or managerial ability ‘great.’ And it is with understanding in mind that we can identify spiritual ‘greatness’ as the basic substance that provides genuine apostolic form of leadership with its authority. And it is the strongest form of leadership available because it awakens the human spirit, focuses it, and holds it together by managing the shared meaning.

Power, Leadership & Communication

Thoughts via Kester Brewin in his book "Signs of Emergence" that I'm currently reading.

In other words, the debate continues to rage, and usually follows the same line: those in power want to preserve power structures because, from their perspective, it's the only way to get things done, while those outside those structures see the world very differently and realise things aren't working as well as those in power think they are.

I've been into this in detail in the book, but, to summarise: power and leadership are about facilitating communication or, in the governance situation, creating environments within which the best possible outcomes for people are likely to emerge. You can't legislate for decency, but you can create the kinds of frameworks within which people are more likely to be decent to one another.

I think this is the tricky situation which both government and certain wings of the church find themselves: they feel so threatened by some external power (terrorism / biblical liberalism) that they panic and want to legislate hard in an attempt to protect us. I currently feel that I'd rather enjoy freedom and decent human rights / civil liberties and be blown up a free man, than be safely cocooned in a tight-assed, Orwellian world.

Is the best way to find meaning at work to stop looking for it?

Found this.

Peace with pointlessness — maybe the best way of dealing with pointlessness at work is not to worry too much about it. That’s the provocative message from an article by Lucy Kellaway of the The Financial Times and the BBC, based on a talk she gave on British radio (” The best way to find meaning at work? Don’t look for it”).

“It pays the mortgage and gets you up in the morning, but these days workers want more from a job — they want meaning. Just don’t go looking for it,” she begins. Why not? This is her answer: “. . . we are in the middle of an epidemic of meaninglessness at work. Bankers, lawyers, and senior managers are increasingly asking themselves what on earth their jobs mean, and finding it hard to come up with an answer.”

And if that sounds glum, try this:

“This doesn’t mean that ambition is a mistake; it is just that there is no magic to advancement per se. The status and the money go up, but that’s it. And then, beset by affluence and by introspection we start to demand that our work has a larger meaning. This almost always ends badly: meaning is a bit like happiness — the more you go out looking for it the less you find.”

"Liminality"

I came across some writings from Victor Turner on "liminality", then I came across the following piece in Alan Hirsch's blog which uses stuff from Roxburgh to also consier "liminalty".

It is worthy to note again that the church in the West is facing a massive adaptive challenge: positively in the form of compelling opportunity and negatively in the form of rapid, discontinuous change. These twin challenges comprise a considerable threat to Christianity locked as it is into the prevailing Constantinian (Christendom) form of church with all its associated institutional rigidity. We are in a situation of what Roxburgh calls ‘liminality’. Liminality in his view is the transition from one fundamental form of the church to another … Environments of discontinuous change require adaptive organizations and leadership. … the missionary situation requires a pioneering and innovative mode of leadership to help the church negotiate the new territory in which it finds itself. This is clear enough when we consider the Emerging Missional Church which relies heavily on an innovative pioneering spirit … But it is equally true for established churches.

Favour effectiveness over efficiency

Building effectiveness into your life

Look at your own life and work. Are you fixated on being more efficient: on doing more and more of what you already do (though perhaps more easily, cheaply, and with less effort)? Or are you looking to make yourself more effective: to learn new skills, add new experiences, become more creative, and follow your ideas wherever they may take you?

Many people rush about being efficient while strangling their effectiveness. They follow the latest fads in time management and personal productivity, yet cannot spare a moment to discover if what they are getting done so much faster and more easily is worth doing at all.

Here’s the fundamental difference: efficiency tries to save time to do more of the same. Effectiveness uses time to avoid doing only what you have done before, in favor of working out how to do something better. And since time cannot be saved — you can’t store it somewhere to use later — only redirected, saving time to do more of the same is no saving at all. Only by choosing to use your time in new and different ways can you let go of the past to find what the future will offer you.

What Table?

From Jonny Baker to Cheryl Lawrie, where the question is 'in one's face'!

We were talking this morning in a breakfast meeting about alternative communities - why the ongoing regular community stuff doesn’t seem to fit too easily into what we’re doing in this project… and why what we’re doing fits awkwardly into the church… this is where the conversation went… [it’s a thought in progress, bear that in mind!]

Most conversations about new forms of church or christian community are about rethinking the table at which the disciples sit. True confession… this project doesn’t emerge from any interest in that table, or even really in the disciples. i think the really interesting stuff of the gospels is the other stories - the tables Jesus went to where the disciples weren’t invited, or where they were so absent no-one thought to mention their presence - the afternoons at Mary and Martha’s, the nameless person’s house where Jesus met the syro-phonoecian woman, dinner at Levi’s house, dinner with Peter’s mother, the ‘water into wine’ wedding table… i think they’re the fun tables.

Interestingly, there’s not a lot of evidence in the gospels that the people around those tables wanted a seat at the disciples’ table - the main event, as such. Which makes it interesting, then, that most conversation about inclusion [and about new forms of Christian community] involves making sure there’s space for everyone at the disciples’ table - the presupposition being that there is only the one table around which everyone should sit. It gives those around the table an enormous amount of power. Perhaps that’s a myth perpetuated by them – because we have been taught to look at things from the disciples’ perspective we think there’s only one table - but the disciples were never as good as Jesus at recognising the other tables.

Perhaps another way of understanding inclusion and generosity is recognising that Jesus doesn’t sit at just one table, and that the disciples don’t host the other tables, or get to decide what happens there. Often they don’t even get invited. Those other tables are out of their control… and will mostly exist out of their line of vision.

If that’s the case, the ultimate act of inclusion for Christian communities is to encourage the possibility there might be other tables [fun tables, with good food - just as good as the church’s table] where God might just turn up, because the story of God is not about inclusion into the Church’s table, but inclusion into a story of life. Because as we know, you don’t have to be a disciple for god to seek you out, and just because you’re a disciple doesn’t mean you get the very best of who God is, and turning into a disciple isn’t the anticipated, or even desired, outcome of every encounter with the story of life…

Which is why we don’t believe that every act of worship, every sacred space should emanate from, or be directed back towards the church’s table. And why we have to look much broader than the disciples for our models of community.

food costs | Clipmarks

food costs | Clipmarks: "clipped from: www.crikey.com.au

* Food costs, how did we get here? (Answer: misery is profitable) The ability of developing nations to feed themselves has been progressively undermined by trade policies and Structural Adjustment Programs (see also) forced upon them by the World Trade Organisation (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank. This ‘unholy trinity’, as these partner institutions are often described, has brought our current food crisis upon us through their neoliberal ‘free’ trade agenda, tailoring markets in developing countries to suit Northern corporations. Recipients of IMF and World Bank loans must open their borders to the influx of highly subsidised agricultural produce from countries like the U.S. of A., who sell their food at below the cost of production (a practice called ‘dumping‘), undercutting local producers and putting them out of business — causing mass urbanisation as millions leave their fields to work or beg in cities, as well as swelling numbers of illegal immigrants into the North. -- Craig Mackintosh, Celsias

A Cheryl Lawrie "Pentecost Prayer"

who would willingly pray for you to come, spirit?

if you could keep it to a minimum, perhaps:
those little flames are fine -
the fires that warm our hands,
the beautiful flames of a flickering candle
that cast just enough light on the dark places
for us to see our path through,
but not enough for us to see our surroundings.
but to pray for the flames that destroy the walls we have carefully built
in our churches and our lives,
that will change the landscape of the world
as we know it -
i don’t think so.

if you could keep the flames to a minimum
so we could put them out in time for morning tea
that would be helpful.
and if you could warn us about that great wind,
in time for us to take shelter inside
that would make this all much easier.

thanks.

"A Leader's Legacy'

Here is a book review of A Leader’s Legacy by James M. Kouzes and Barry Z. Posner that was sent to me by a friend in the USA

Kouzes and Posner are best known for their award-winning book The Leadership Challenge. This is a collection of brief essays dealing with personal aspects of leadership. Main section headings are Significance, Relationships, Aspirations and Courage. There is much good in the book. Unfortunately it misses the whole realm of exponential possibilities when one partners with God in the world.

“By asking ourselves how we want to be remembered, we plant the seeds for living our lives as if we matter. By living as if we matter, we offer up our own unique legacy.” (6)

“When we move on, people do not remember us for what we do for ourselves. They remember us for what we do for them.” (10)

“Exemplary leaders are interested more in others’ success than in their own. Their greatest achievements are the triumphs of those they serve.” (10)

“You are the most important leader in your organization for the people who look to you.” (11)

“The best way to learn something is to teach it to somebody else.” (21) When we teach we “always try to provide an opportunity for participants to become the teachers.” “When they have to talk to even one other person about their own experiences…they’ve got to reach deeper inside than if we just leave them to sit there passively and listen.” (22)

“Each of us, whether we intend to or not, will become at some point a character in someone’s story.” “The obvious question is, What will they say?” (25)

“…most leaders don’t want honest feedback, don’t ask for honest feedback, and don’t get much of it unless it’s forced on them.” “The higher up you go on the corporate ladder, the less likely it is that leaders will ask for feedback.” (28) The-New-Road-to-the-Top

“Paying attention to the early warnings prevents more serious problems later.” (30)

“It is hard to get good feedback. The default position in our cultures is: fear. Fear of getting honest feedback and probably even more fear of giving it.” (31 quoting Dan Mulhern)

“…to your direct reports you are the most important leader in your organization. You are more likely than any other leader to influence whether people will stay, perform at their best, wow customers, or be motivated to share the organization’s vision and values. In other words, you are the CEO of your group.” (33)

The behavior of the immediate supervisor is the strongest influence on ethical or unethical behavior of employees. (34)

“There is a 100 percent chance that you can be a role model for leadership. There is a 100 percent chance that you can influence someone else’s performance. There is a 100 percent chance that you will make a difference in other people’s lives.” (36-37)

“No one likes to be an assumption. No one likes being taken for granted. No one likes being ignored, overlooked, or dismissed.” “We all want to know that we’re appreciated, and we want to hear it firsthand.” “…we need someone shouting in our ear, ‘Come on, you can do it. I know you can do it!’” (40)

The most important thing a leader can do is say “Thank you, great job. I appreciate you and what you’re doing for the company.” (42) “Extraordinary achievements never bloom in barren and unappreciative settings.” (44)

“…if people are going to follow you they need to know more about you than the fact that you’re their boss. They need to know something about who you are as a person—your hopes, dreams, talents, expectations, and loves.” (50) “Do they know who you are, what you care about, and why they ought to be following you?” (51)

“They want to know about your values and beliefs, your aims and aspirations, and your hopes and dreams.” “They want to know what drives you, what makes you happy, and what ticks you off.” “This is about learning to trust. We’re just more likely to trust people we know….” “Leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who choose to follow.” (52)

“We lead our lives in the company of others, and that is where we leave our legacy. It’s the quality of our relationships that most determines whether our legacy will be ephemeral or lasting.” (55)

“Leaders should want to be liked.” “…we never, ever hear anyone tell us…, ‘He was a real jerk, but I sure was inspired to do my best for him.’” (57) “Likability is a major factor in being successful in just about every endeavor in life.” (58) “It’s about how you act when you’re around others. It’s about your behavior.” (61)

“I think people notice when you are having difficulty working with someone, but they also notice when you find ways to make it work. In other words, you begin to shine as someone who can be trusted and is capable of leadership.” (63 quoting Eric Piziali, Hitachi Data Systems)

“Experience is a great teacher, and not all experiences are going to be pleasant.” “…in every serious conflict there’s something about ourselves we have the chance to learn.” (64)

“When you’re in a difficult and tense situation, the first and most important thing to find out is if everyone involved shares the same purpose and goals. It’s crucial to talk about desired outcomes and make every effort to get everyone aligned.” (68)

“Leaders have to be able to promote, demonstrate, and support constructive insubordination.” (68) “We have to make it possible for people to argue with each other—up, own, in out, and sideways—if we are to realize the best from today’s diverse and talented workforce.” (69-70)

“Leaders must decide on what matters in life, before they can live a life that matters.” (90) “Until you passionately believe in something it’s hard to imagine that you could ever convince anyone else to believe. And if you wouldn’t follow you, why should anyone else?” (97-98)

According to thousands of surveys “being forward-looking is second only to honesty as their most admired leader in quality.” (99) “Today’s leaders stink at it.” “…this is the competency that has shown up as being the least understood, appreciated, and demonstrated.” (100) [As someone said, Forecasting is difficult – especially about the future. dlm]

“To increase our ability to conceive of new and creative solutions to today’s problems, we have to stop, look, and listen. We have to stop doing for some amount of time each day.” (103) “It’s imperative that we spend less time on daily operations and more time on future possibilities.” (106)

“What people really want to hear is not the leader’s vision.” “They want to hear how their dreams will come true and their hopes will be fulfilled. They want to see themselves in the picture of the future that the leader is painting. The very best leaders understand that their key task is inspiring a shared vision….” (108)

“…very few adults like to be told in so many words, ‘Here is where we’re going, so get on board with it.’’ “They want to feel part of the process.” (108) As one employee said to the boss, “We want to walk with you while you create the goals and vision so we all get to the end vision together.” (109) “We want to walk with our leaders. We want to dream with them. We want to invent with them.” (110)

“Getting others excited about future possibilities is not about creating better PowerPoint presentations.” “It’s about intimacy. It’s about familiarity. It’s about empathy. The kind of communication needed to enlist others in a common vision requires understanding constituents at a much deeper level than we normally find comfortable. It requires understanding others’ strongest yearnings and their deepest fears. It requires a profound awareness of their joys and their sorrows. It requires experiencing life as they experience it. Being able to do this is not magic, nor is it rocket science. It really calls for listening very, very closely to what other people want.’ (112)

Breakthrough innovations “are, in fact, the result of superb and attentive listening. They are the result of being closely attuned to the environment. They are the result of a great appreciation of people’s aspirations.” (113)

“There’s too much focus on the leader leading and not enough on that same leader following. ‘A good leader is also a good follower.’” (122 quoting Susanna Wong)

“…leadership is a dynamic relationship between leaders and followers in which the roles of leader and follower are often exchanged. It’s the kind of relationship in which leaders transform followers into leader.” (123)

“Being a follower is good for the soul.” (128)

Rosa Parks refused to move to the back of the bus. Her actions were not complex or superhuman. They were simple and mundane. But she shows that it is possible for one person to make a difference.

“Courageous acts flow from a commitment to deeply held beliefs—you just can’t separate the two.” (151) “We all have the capacity to create Rosa Parks Moments.” (152) “Rosa Parks Moments are turning points in our lives.” (153)

“Modesty may not seem like an important leadership virtue these days, but failure to keep your feet planted firmly on the ground invariable leads to the greatest leadership sin of all—hubris. Excessive pride has gotten more than a fair share of leaders and companies in a heap of trouble.” (158) “We have to be vigilant in noticing our mistakes and admitting them before they’re printed in the press.” (159) “Humility and grace make up the antidote to the poison of excessive pride and the rapacious harm that it does to our lives.” (162)

There are countless chances to make a difference every day in the lives of those we lead. “Leading is not about what we gain from others but about what others gain from us.” (178)

“The legacy you leave is the life you lead. We lead our lives daily. We leave our legacy daily. The people you see, the decisions you make, the actions you take—they are what tell your story.” (180)