… a spirit or an angel …

Did this at Pain in the Arts yesterday, reflecting on a tweet from @JesusQueries:

Is creativity that important?

Took the blocks to Pain in the Arts today, and we talked a little bit about getting in touch with the inner artist-child. Was thinking about how it often seems like creativity is not that important. I’d say that opportunities to be creative are quite important to the Credo community. If you can’t be creative, or imaginative, that basically means that you can’t change the world around you. It means that you can’t change your circumstances. Paulo Freire said that someone who doesn’t realise this is dehumanised. Doing art together in Credo can remind people that they have the power to mould the materials of the world around them.

(Excuse the grainy photo – I only have my phone for taking pictures at the moment!)

Praying with blocks

I was organising staff prayers this afternoon. I’d been reading The Artist’s Way that morning. In the part I was reading, Julia Cameron was talking about how we’re born creative (created in the image of the Creator, as co-creators), but often as we’re growing up we’re taught not to be. Cameron encourages her readers to think back to when they were children, to get back in touch with their artist child. What was your favourite childhood toy or game? What was your favourite movie? What was your bedroom like? What did you believe you could do when you were a child? What did you want to be when you grew up? It reminded me a bit about Jesus saying that we need to be born again (John 3), so that we can grow up properly. We need to be re-educated.
So this afternoon I shared with the rest of the staff some of what I’d been thinking about, and passed around a box of blocks. I told everyone to take some to build with. Then I invited people to place a block on the coffee table to represent their prayer. So some prayers were represented with buildings, others with towers being toppled. One block was dropped on the buildings – a prayer for those being bombed in Afghanistan. Some blocks were taken away, representing Victoria’s stolen children, who we remember tomorrow. They were later returned, because we hope for healing.

Christmas ideas

Marx was asking me the other day if I had any worship ideas for Christmas. Was wondering about making a video that looks something like this image (from the Winter Solstice at CSBC), and doing something to do with the idea of ‘peace on Earth’.

A flutter at the races

Tuesday is Melbourne Cup Day. The Melbourne Cup is known as ‘the race that stops a nation’. Even though it’s a public holiday in Melbourne Credo is still going to be open. We basically don’t want the TAB to be the only place in town for people to go and hang out.
I’ve been thinking about what we could reflect on at Credo Gathering that day. I did a bit of reading yesterday. Apparently the Australian Drug Foundation has accused the Victorian Racing Club of promoting the Melbourne Cup as an event to get wasted at. The VRC, however, say that their advertising makes no reference to alcohol (article here).
Apparently Lion Nathan (the company that owns Tooheys, XXXX and Hahn) are flying two planeloads of live butterflies down from Sydney to decorate their ‘Pure Room’, which will be promoting James Boag Pure Tasmanian beer.

They’re also setting up a forest with real myrtle beeches and tree ferns and a waterfall, so that punters can ‘experience not only the look and feel of the Tasmanian wilderness, but also the sounds and smells’ (article here).
Why would Lion Nathan go to such great lengths? What is this, if not advertising alcohol?

All Things in Common

So last weekend I was down at Phillip Island for TEAR Australia’s Victoria Gathering. This year’s theme was ‘All Things in Common’. I was involved in running the ‘Hospitality and Inclusion’ workshop stream, and I was also setting up some installation art in the main auditorium and the ‘Praying in Hope’ space.
When we went down to visit the venue earlier in the year there was a big scaffold standing in the middle of the auditorium. Greg said we’d have to make sure it wasn’t there during the gathering. Marcus said maybe we could turn it into an art installation, like the Tower of Babel. So I ended up running with that.

World Vision Prayer Day

On Tuesday and Wednesday I was out at Belgrave, helping Mark Pierson set up for World Vision Australia’s staff prayer day. Mark was curating some interactive installations around the grounds of Belgrave Heights Convention Centre, based on the theme of ‘Lingering with Intent’. Here are some photos:

Mission Exposure Week

Last night we started Mission Exposure Week once again. We have five punters staying with us to learn about Urban Seed. Last night we spent some time sharing about our faith journeys and this morning Kate took us on the first part of the Mark’s gospel Bible walk, following Jesus’ journey to the margins in our own neighbourhood. Tonight I’m leading second part of the walk, following Jesus’ return to the centre of society, to confront the powers. That means we’ll be at the Casino during the Brownlow.

If you’re interested in following what’s going on for the week, keep an eye on the #me09 hash tag on Twitter.

Homosexuality and homophobia

Have been thinking a bit about homosexuality and homophobia a bit recently. I’ve particularly been thinking, how do we as a Christian community be inclusive both to homosexuals and to homophobes? We have people in our community who believe that it’s wrong to be a homosexual, and at least one person who believes they should take every opportunity to tell homosexuals that they’re sinners. We also have homosexuals in our community, many who believe that there’s nothing wrong with being gay.
What’s difficult is trying to make sure that our community is safe for both of these groups. The homosexuals need to feel safe, welcome and affirmed, and those who are against homosexuality need their views to be heard, and not squashed in the name of political correctness.

What happens when I work too hard