The August edition of Insights (UCA publication in NSW/ACT has a great coverage of Deacons and diaconal ministry - a great read. If you live in NSW/ACT you'll have access to copies. People in other Synods might like to contact Insights for a copy. The editorial team is to be congratulated for such a great contribution to the 20th anniversary of Deacons in the UCA.
Here's a link to Clive Pearson's article on the God is where?! Conference, featured in the August edition of Insights and Stephen Webb's editorial.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Exploring diaconal ministry - a post by Steve Taylor
Rev Dr Steve Taylor, Principal, Uniting College for Leadership and Theology (UCLT) in SA, wrote on his blog:
A few weeks a young couple came to see me, armed with questions about ministry in the Uniting Church. With their permission, this is some of their story.
She was born in rural Australia and moved to Adelaide to study. In 2008, as part of her degree, she did a placement in Port Augusta. She felt a stirring, a sense that she might return one day. She returned to Adelaide to continue her study. She met and married a trained youth worker.
After university study, they found employment in community ministry here in Adelaide. Together they sensed God’s call to the marginalised and poor. In order to explore this call they moved to work with Urban Neighbours of Hope (UNOH) in Sydney. They loved the values of UNOH, of Incarnational work in partnership with the lost and the least. But they still remained restless, sensing their call was not urban, but to regional South Australia.
They moved to Port Augusta, he to community youth work, she to volunteering at the aged care home in Davenport, plus paid a few days a week as part of the Aboriginal education team in the school. They found the most run down suburb and moved in. They find themselves linking with the Uniting Church, one week with Congress, the other week with Port Augusta Uniting Church.
In the Uniting Church they heard about the ministry of Deacon. Hence their visit to see me. They want to be in Port Augusta for the next 15 years, to embrace a ministry of Incarnational community development. How can their sense of call be realised in the ministries of the Uniting Church?
The Uniting Church’s understanding of ministry is that we are all called to ministry. The Basis of Union says “The Uniting Church affirms …. one Spirit has endowed the members of his church with a diversity of gifts, and that there is no gift without its corresponding service: all ministries have a part in the ministry of Christ.”
The Uniting College is about developing effective leaders of healthy, missional churches who are passionate, Christ-centred, highly skilled, mission oriented practitioners. That is you and that is me and that is our friends in Port Augusta seeking to discern their gifts and calling with the Uniting Church.
Source: http://www.emergentkiwi.org.nz/archive/uniting-college-mission-future/
Wednesday, August 15, 2012
Where is God - DIAKONIA Conference
A fantastic article by Rev Dr Clive Pearson in the NSW publication Insights reflects on the conference: Check it out here. Here's a taster......
The title of this conference — “God is Where?!” — was unusual.
It is much more normal to think of who is God and what kind of God do we believe in. That shift to “where” is a little peculiar. It is suggesting a different kind of agenda.
The who and what questions are much more tied to the internal life of the church and how mission is sometimes (not without problems) tied to the church. It is, after all, the mission of God rather than the mission of this all too human institution in which we participate.
The who and what questions invite us to pay more attention to the inner life of discipleship and membership; the where question is of a different order altogether.
That point has been very well made by the English Methodist theologian, Clive Marsh.
His Christ in Practice is a study of what he calls an “everyday Christology”; it is designed to seek out “traces”, “resonances” — hints — of the Jesus story in the secular, multi-faith society we live in and which are beyond the walls of the church.
The distinctively Australian nature of the context was informed by a reading of Gary Bouma’s Australian Soul and a handful of other writers, including some who have spoken of their life in Australia as being “Australienated”.
This business of “where” is in keeping with the emerging discipline of a public theology/ministry. This synod is the only synod in the country which through its theological college has committed itself to this task, which is now freely described as a major “global flow”.
What this designation means is that a public theology is now regarded as a significant new development around the globe in helping Christians understand their faith and what is being asked of them for Christ’s sake.
The aim of the conference was to explore the nature and purpose of a public theology.
At one level this way of thinking is a thoughtful protest against the common tendency to confine faith to the world of private belief (me and my Jesus, so said Dorothee Sölle) or to the church’s struggle to survive.
These things have their place; they are important but they are only part of the picture.
The intention of a public theology is to work for the common good, the public good, and the construction of a civil society.
David Ford from Cambridge reckons that such a theology is concerned with the flourishing of all. That has become a frequent refrain for a faith and ministry in our post-this and -that world.
Those who are committed to this form of theology and ministry are shaped by a host of biblical considerations.
The Bible studies each day were designed to draw out the theme of the week and put a practical human face on this enterprise. There are a number of organising texts, like by the question posed by Jesus — who do people say that I am? — and the call to love one’s neighbour as oneself. The nagging question here is who is our neighbour?
The public theologian is likely to make use of the biblical themes of wisdom a great deal. The emphasis is an act of discernment, a capacity to read the signs of the times and express a Christian faith committed to mercy, compassion, justice and the care of creation.
It was recognised that part of the public role of the Christian faith is to secure a voice in the marketplace of ideas within society. That is not necessarily easy when there is so much suspicion with regards the Christian faith and in this setting the contemporary follower of Christ cannot rely upon a privileged space.
There have been too many negative headlines; there has been too much trauma associated with the effect of the church on the lives of so many people.
This discipline is one which works with “strangers”; it is interdisciplinary and it relies upon the extension of thin trust.
Such trust occurs where you do not know well or all the other but you expect them to treat you well as you would them. The making of a civil society — of any sort — depends upon such trust, writes Martin Marty in his fine study of Creating Cultures of Trust.
Those visits through the course of the week were designed to illustrate how a public theology identifies issues of the day which require prophetic attention. It so happened that they frequently coincided with the daily work and passion of those involved in a diaconal ministry.
What those present seemed to find helpful was being given a theological frame of reference in which to situate their work and praxis.They were being given words to name what they do and how it fits into the bigger picture of the Christian hope for the world.They were being invited to be bilingual; meaning being well-grounded and able to talk within the life of the church and beyond in the public domain where God is also to be found.
Clive Pearson is Principal of United Theological College, Lecturer in Theology and Ethics, and Head of School, School of Theology, Charles Sturt University.
The title of this conference — “God is Where?!” — was unusual.
It is much more normal to think of who is God and what kind of God do we believe in. That shift to “where” is a little peculiar. It is suggesting a different kind of agenda.
The who and what questions are much more tied to the internal life of the church and how mission is sometimes (not without problems) tied to the church. It is, after all, the mission of God rather than the mission of this all too human institution in which we participate.
The who and what questions invite us to pay more attention to the inner life of discipleship and membership; the where question is of a different order altogether.
That point has been very well made by the English Methodist theologian, Clive Marsh.
His Christ in Practice is a study of what he calls an “everyday Christology”; it is designed to seek out “traces”, “resonances” — hints — of the Jesus story in the secular, multi-faith society we live in and which are beyond the walls of the church.
The distinctively Australian nature of the context was informed by a reading of Gary Bouma’s Australian Soul and a handful of other writers, including some who have spoken of their life in Australia as being “Australienated”.
This business of “where” is in keeping with the emerging discipline of a public theology/ministry. This synod is the only synod in the country which through its theological college has committed itself to this task, which is now freely described as a major “global flow”.
What this designation means is that a public theology is now regarded as a significant new development around the globe in helping Christians understand their faith and what is being asked of them for Christ’s sake.
The aim of the conference was to explore the nature and purpose of a public theology.
At one level this way of thinking is a thoughtful protest against the common tendency to confine faith to the world of private belief (me and my Jesus, so said Dorothee Sölle) or to the church’s struggle to survive.
These things have their place; they are important but they are only part of the picture.
The intention of a public theology is to work for the common good, the public good, and the construction of a civil society.
David Ford from Cambridge reckons that such a theology is concerned with the flourishing of all. That has become a frequent refrain for a faith and ministry in our post-this and -that world.
Those who are committed to this form of theology and ministry are shaped by a host of biblical considerations.
The Bible studies each day were designed to draw out the theme of the week and put a practical human face on this enterprise. There are a number of organising texts, like by the question posed by Jesus — who do people say that I am? — and the call to love one’s neighbour as oneself. The nagging question here is who is our neighbour?
The public theologian is likely to make use of the biblical themes of wisdom a great deal. The emphasis is an act of discernment, a capacity to read the signs of the times and express a Christian faith committed to mercy, compassion, justice and the care of creation.
It was recognised that part of the public role of the Christian faith is to secure a voice in the marketplace of ideas within society. That is not necessarily easy when there is so much suspicion with regards the Christian faith and in this setting the contemporary follower of Christ cannot rely upon a privileged space.
There have been too many negative headlines; there has been too much trauma associated with the effect of the church on the lives of so many people.
This discipline is one which works with “strangers”; it is interdisciplinary and it relies upon the extension of thin trust.
Such trust occurs where you do not know well or all the other but you expect them to treat you well as you would them. The making of a civil society — of any sort — depends upon such trust, writes Martin Marty in his fine study of Creating Cultures of Trust.
Those visits through the course of the week were designed to illustrate how a public theology identifies issues of the day which require prophetic attention. It so happened that they frequently coincided with the daily work and passion of those involved in a diaconal ministry.
What those present seemed to find helpful was being given a theological frame of reference in which to situate their work and praxis.They were being given words to name what they do and how it fits into the bigger picture of the Christian hope for the world.They were being invited to be bilingual; meaning being well-grounded and able to talk within the life of the church and beyond in the public domain where God is also to be found.
Clive Pearson is Principal of United Theological College, Lecturer in Theology and Ethics, and Head of School, School of Theology, Charles Sturt University.
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