[ hold :: this space ]

i started writing this in Hong Kong sometime yesterday… i’ve been home for 18 hours, asleep for not quite enough of them, and hope this doesn’t reflect that!… i intended to write a lot more while i was away, but barely touched the computer… no regrets there…

We had a good trip. Greenbelt was followed by a few days in Telford, then the group split with mine going to Belfast and Manchester, before rejoining the others [who had been in Oxford] in London for a couple of days. The time always goes so fast, and the conversations just seem to get started; at its best, the trip gives a taste, and it sparks some imagination.

The entire trip is made possible only by the amazing generosity and hospitality of the people and communities we visit. I think in future trips we need to think about how we minimise the burden for those we visit - it must be getting to a point where many of them are spending more time entertaining fact-finding visitors than they are being community … i also think there are a number of communities who carry the cost of public scrutiny and opinions that are arrogantly formed in a fleeting visit. It’s easy to speak of them theoretically, rather than as people trying to make sense of the hardest parts of their lives and faith in a public space. Needless to say, each group we connected with was remarkable - not just for the fabulous things they are doing, but for their honesty and integrity in who they are trying to become.

Over the last few days Nic and i were talking through possibilities for next year’s trip. we need to split the group into two again - one focussed on meeting with people in new forms of faith community, the other focussed on meeting with those who are working to make space for such communities in the institutional church. I think i’d like to go one step further with the first group though, and offer a trip for people who want to explore the connection between culture and spirituality, not necessarily for any outworking in a faith community context, and certainly not necessarily as potential ‘leaders’ of such communities… it would be great to take some of the artists [in the broadest definition] who are right on the fringes of what we’re doing here [which is, in its turn, on the fringe of the church] to visit greenbelt, then to meet with groups and people in the UK [christian and otherwise] who are making the same connections on a day to day basis… it would be the kind of trip where we’d spend as much time in galleries as we would with communities…

so a huge thankyou to those who met with us, brought us into their homes [and their pubs]… and to our UK support crew [especially Taryn!] who offered local knowledge and wisdom that makes logistics so much easier… And thanks to the group who put up with a fairly relentless schedule with great humour, and managed to turn even the dodgiest moments into some kind of learning experience…

the annual UK trip has functioned as a punctuation mark for me over the last few years - a semicolon of sorts. some theme always gets expanded in its aftermath, things take on a new direction in response. i’m looking forward to seeing what that might be this year… but it’s going to have to unfold in my subconscious for a few days; i’m taking most of the next week off… see you on return.

This is the ’script’ for worship… wish it were possible to put up the rabbit proof fence clip… all credit to Ben, Sarah, Craig, Nic for participating in a flawed process and making something good out of it… and to Ray, Jenny, Peter and Darren for turning up on the day and making it work…

Set up
Front of the room: screen with projected still of ‘Rabbit Proof Fence’ salt pan with ‘the memory of water’ written across the bottom. ripped up pages of bible tossed around the floor.

Intro:
Intro who we are, context, shape of worship.

Gathering:

Voice 1
[selected verses from John 4]
Jesus left Judea and started back to Galilee. And when he came to Sychar, a Samaritan city, he was tired out by his journey, and sat by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink’. The Samaritan woman said to him, ‘How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?’ Jesus answered her, ‘If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, “Give me a drink”, you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.’ The woman said to him, ‘Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty…’

Rabbit Proof Fence clip: ‘There was water here once’
scene: Daisy and Grace are walking across the salt pan
music: David Bridie’s ‘Salt’
words written over clip:

There was water here once,
in the beginning.

So much that the world overflowed with it.

It was the voice of God that pushed the water to the side,
and it left, in its wake,

dry edges
and arid centres

earth, with cracks so deep,
we could lose ourselves in them.

sand,
dust,
salt

all testament to the story
that there was water here once.

It’s easy to be thirsty
when the water is everywhere.

And for a while, when it dries up,
it’s fine.
There are wells that run deep
from hidden springs.

But after a time
even the underground rivers run dry.

And when you have been in the desert too long,

the cracks no longer testify that there was water here once
they speak only of its absence.

you lose the taste of water.
you lose the courage to thirst.

Sometimes faith is having confidence that rain will fall again
sometimes it’s knowing where water is to be found.

and sometimes it’s just having the courage to be found here,

cracked
empty
and arid

Welcome to worship

Invite people to move to stations

i.
prayers for the world
[Words to psalm laid out, response transparencies, bowl of salt]

You visit the earth
and water it.
If we have no water,
have you stopped
dropping by?

The river of God
runs full and far:
if our rivers are dry,
have you run away?

Meadows are not clothed with flocks,
valleys are not decked with grain;
there is no song of joy in the land
in its abundant lack of rain.

How can we sing the Lord’s song
in this strange land?

[written by Sarah Agnew]

Response and instructions:

It seems that neither gods
nor clouds
are of our making.

We wish the world were different
and maybe sometimes we wish you were too, God.

Where are the places in the world, where rain has not fallen and where prayers have not been answered?

taste the salt… and make your protest or your prayer to god…

ii

prayers for ourself
[a loop of a small part of the salt pan walk from Rabbit Proof Fence on computers
bowls of water on brown paper]

We turn our face towards hazy seas
that beckon us from the horizon.

we hesitate with fear that their promise is a mirage

no longer sure of any map,
no longer trusting the words of ancient wisdom,
we pray they do not have it wrong…

what is the act of faith that is beyond you?
what is the hope you are not able to trust?
what is the ancient wisdom that you can no longer hear?

write your prayer into the water

iii

Confession

[‘bed’ of sand, letters SOS torn out of sandpaper and laid on top, sheets of sandpaper]

Make your prayer of confession, or your plea for help with the sandpaper.

iv

cracked

[bed of sand, ripped out pages of bible for people to ‘wrap’ sand in]

When the cracks first appear
in the soil of our faith
our instinct is to cover them over
with artificial turf or concrete
[someone else’s prayers, another’s declaration of faith]

just so no-one will notice
and deem us neglectful,
untidy,
careless,
lacking.

They say we just need more faith,
that of course there’s water to be found,
we’re just looking in the wrong place
[sing this song! pray this prayer! we’ll baptise you!].
Pretend the cracks aren’t there
and one day they won’t be.

But the songs no longer work
and the promises are empty

the waters of baptism only drown us in loneliness.

They may say we need more faith
but we know the faith it takes to stand here
cracked,
and parched

naked in the truth we can’t go back, and that there seems no way forward;

barely remembering the touch of water
and not believing rain will ever come again.

if you stand here cracked and parched, take a handful of sand, let it trickle onto the ground in the shape of your story.

and if you can honour the faith that is held in another’s story
take some of the sand with you…

v

the well

[a dinged up metal bucket, a ladle, sitting on brown paper or black plastic, glasses, people to pour glasses of water]

Sometimes faith is having confidence that rain will fall again
sometimes it’s knowing where water is to be found

and sometimes it’s just having the courage to be here,
cracked
empty
and arid.

rest for a while.
if you would like, there is water here for your journey.

Gather back and send out
[ziplock bags of salt]

Perhaps it is blind faith to have confidence that rain will come again
and easy cynicism to say we will never find a well

Let your thirst be your faith,
let the memory of water haunt you

so that if it rains, you can stand with hands open

and if you see a well, you will know it is yours to drink.

If you cannot leave with faith,
leave with courage.

If you cannot leave with hope,
go yearning…

amen.

I keep trying to get a moment to blog - i’ve been trying for the last three weeks - but it’s quite busy at the moment! I’ve made a deliberate attempt to leave the computer off wherever possible, and blogging is paying the cost of that! but we’re in Stratford-upon-Avon, post Greenbelt, having 24 hours recovery, and i’ve got 5 minutes before checkout time…

Greenbelt was fabulous, as always. it was a really busy greenbelt - i was involved in a lot of stuff, as well as trying to make greenbelt possible for the group… the mud and cold made some of that a little trickier… but it was really wonderful to catch up with the people who hold space for me… more about that and them later.

We curated worship on Saturday afternoon. It was a little risky, we build the worship around very australian imagery and it was hard to predict how easy that would be for people to enter into. I think it went OK. I’ll put up what we did as soon as I can.

I’ve got better at doing Greenbelt - I’m less and less interested in hearing people speak, and more looking for the possibilities of conversations with people in similar spaces to me… i was thinking about things i’d like to do next year: i’d like to be involved in a couple more roundtables - one with women in leadership [laura, cary, nadia, jen, etc], not to talk about being women in leadership, but just to talk about leadership… the other thing i’d like to be involved with is a conversation about prison stuff, which is something a number of people talked to me about on the weekend. i’m imagining these would be things that are less ‘panel’ like, and more conversation amongst the group.

Anyway, we’re on to Telford today to meet with Mark Berry and the community there. Our group is a really interesting mix of people [as are most groups!]. it will be interesting to see how our conversation unfolds, what the focus will be: how things fit within the ‘institution’, or how communities work…

i’ll write more whenever we have access again - about worship, and also about the prison stuff down in Exeter and Channings Wood last week.

We’re putting the final touches on this year’s trip to the UK. 15 of us from Australia are heading over for Greenbelt, and then visiting a few different alt / emerging communities through the UK. I’m arriving a little early to catch up with some people who work in prisons in the UK before the rest of the group arrive. We’ll be joined by another 10 or 15 australians [and ex-pats] at greenbelt - we’ll all be camping together.

We are curating worship on Saturday at 5pm in the New Forms cafe. The theme is ‘the memory of water’.

[we already have strong interest for next year's trip... i'll be putting out information about that hopefully before we leave for this year's...]

Nic, from NSW, and I have been meeting over the last couple of days to plan the greenbelt trip. We have 16 people travelling this year, which has led us to split part of the trip into two groups - the group that Nic’s coordinating will be more focussed on meeting with people who work with the ‘institution’ to see how they create space for alternative forms of christian community within their denomination. i’m coordinating the other group which will be focussed solely on visiting communities around the UK to hear their stories.

there’s no more space left in the group… and there are even a number of people who have said they can’t come this year, but would love to be part of a trip next year. we’re really delighted that so many people from such diverse perspectives want to be part of these trips. they’re building a critical mass of people who ‘get’ the conversation.

[photos by mike]

we’re off to greenbelt again.

If you’re interested in coming to the UK in August - September, to go to Greenbelt and then meet people from alternative / emerging communities around the UK, flick me an email. I’ll send you details of the trip we’re planning, and how you can be part of it.

This trip is a collaboration between a few of us around australia… our aim with these visits is to build a critical mass of people who are talking the same language and speaking from a shared experience. We want to offer people a taste of what’s possible, to inspire imagination… and as those who went last year would testify, it can be a remarkable, life-changing experience.

it’s lovely to be home; it’s just as lovely to know i’m going back next year.

[The God Delusion - image by Mike]

the loveliest bit of being home is letting go of all the organisational details in my head. it’s left space for other stuff to emerge [thank heavens, i was hoping there was something else in there] - and the thoughts that have been haunting me all day have been little pieces of the Ikon service, the God Delusion, at Greenbelt. Much has been written of it elsewhere - and mike has some stunning photos of the service here. i found it profoundly beautiful and comforting - simply in the relief of knowing others are in this space too. No description will do it justice, of course. Even though the outline of the service is now up on the ikon website, the words written there give only a fragment of the picture: they have to be layered onto the images, which in turn must be layered onto the soundtrack… and then add to that the ultimate variable of an audience of a couple of thousand people… some confused, some stunned, some dismissive, some discomforted, some resonant, some finding a home they hadn’t known they were missing… all of which permeates the room and makes for something absolutely stunning.

Some dismiss Ikon by calling what they do pretentious [has anyone else noticed that 'pretentious' has become the criticism of choice within alt worship circles?]. and probably, for most of us, if we ‘did’ ikon in our own context - if we layered that as a particular theology onto our worship, rather than waiting to see if it was a reflection of the faith of the community - it could well be pretentious. But i think it can only be described as pretentious if it’s thought of as coming from a purely intellectual base - and if you think that’s where the ikon service came from, it seems to me that you missed the vulnerability of those who were telling this moment in their stories; that you are maybe disconnecting the moment of the service from the stories that led to it: of brokenness, disillusionment, fragility, despair. it’s sophisticated and complex, it’s grand and dramatic, but it’s much too real and raw to be pretentious.

[interestingly, in all the contexts in which i 'do' alt worship, the place i see a similar theology emerging, of its own accord, is in the prisons. the guys in prison get deconstruction - prison deconstructs everything, especially faith. but as they keep proving to me, deconstruction isn't inevitably the ruin of faith, it can be the making of it: in the unravelling is the ravelling.]

at the ikon service it was padraig’s piece ‘Breaking me‘ that did, indeed, break me… just as the verse in the song he sang last year, ‘i found my home in babylon’, broke me then. and, of course, the gradual cutting away and unravelling of the knitting… and the line in Pete’s introduction, as said by god: ‘i do not exist’… there’s enough in all that to feed a lifetime… and enough to remind me, in my jetlagged stupor today, why i can’t wait to go back.

a rare moment of space in a pretty frenetic trip… we’re in belfast for the weekend and the rest of the group have gone on a tour to see murals. i’m catching up with friends instead.

it’s been a fabulous trip. Greenbelt was absolutely wonderful. I saw much less of it this year than previously, so that was a bit weird. Due to some illness in the group i didn’t get any further than the food tents for the first 36 hours, but i did get to know the inside of Cheltenham hospital pretty intimately. The last 36 hours of greenbelt were, however, absolutely brilliant. highlights were Coldcut on the saturday night, Duke Special on the Sunday night [simply wonderful], Peterson Toscano, the Ikon worship, Grace’s communion by numbers, and late nights at the beer tent with people who are now old friends and the very best of company.

The group loved it. Greenbelt is an embarrassment of riches - for many of the group, the diversity on offer was enough, even before going to anything. We’re definitely bringing another group over again next year… start planning if you’re interested. people on this trip have found it even more worthwhile than i imagined.

we’ve been travelling since greenbelt on a whirlwind tour of various communities. i’m so grateful and humbled by the generosity and hospitality people have shown us since we’ve arrived. i have to swallow my pride a little because i know that we probably won’t have the chance to reciprocate the hospitality, and it’s much easier to offer it than receive it…

we spent the first couple of days, post-greenbelt, in telford with Mark Berry’s community. i’ll reflect in more detail when my head’s clearer, but i was really, really impressed by how things are unfolding there. And the thursday night gathering that we were welcomed into was quite beautiful.

and now we’re in belfast. it’s been a big 24 hours here… spent the afternoon yesterday with Pete, Cazi, Jayne and Ricky… last night at the pub with a stack of Ikon-ers… today just catching up with people… tomorrow we’re off to manchester to spend some time with the Sanctus people, and then Monday it’s back to London to wrap things up.

it’s been exhausting but exhilarating. i had no idea it would be quite this much work to make a group trip like this work… but i also had no idea it would be such a rich experience. how lucky we are…

so, we’re in london… we’ve a great group who have come over from australia - really diverse, lots of energy, a nice collective of experience and imagination. It was a good trip over, though it is interminably long. i can report that they serve up glenlivet on demand in business class… the only problem with an unexpected upgrade is that it spoils you forever for cattle class.

we’re off to Greenbelt in a couple of hours. the weather looks absolutely perfect - a marked change to yesterday in London, which was so dismal it felt like we hadn’t left Melbourne. I have no idea who i’m looking forward to seeing at Greenbelt! I’ve barely glanced at the lineup… i am confident, however, that when i look at the program on arrival that i’ll be overwhelmed by its richness and depth. from previous experience I’ll cram as much as i can into the first 36 hours, and then collapse exhaustedly in the organic beer tent and spent the last few days catching up with people. perfect… that’s always the very best part. the people i’ve met at greenbelt have been some of my best companions and collaborators in this project, even though they live half a world away. and i guess, selfishly, that i’m hoping to find that place again that is pure gift for me - the perfect fit, someone offering worship or space in which i recognise myself completely. i found it last year at the ikon service, and realised how rare it is to be in that place. bring it on.

so we’re plying ourselves with coffee, to stave off the last remnants of jetlag, then we’re off to the sunshine… there’s wireless internet at greenbelt, but we’ll see how the time unfolds.