Give Gear

So morepraxis now has a fun place to buy your generous revolution tees - (thanks mike!)

Check out the range of tees (yep they are fair trade) and if you are a creative praxis person and would like to design us something… feel free.

http://www.redbubble.com/people/morepraxis

UpperRoom - Asylum Seekers

October 1, 2007
6:00 pm	to	9:00 pm

The Upper Room Project meets the first Monday of each month (6:-8:30pm) to engage with spirituality and justice as struggled with and fought for by the Prophets and Jesus. We meet upstairs in the Shine Café/Bar (74 Kingsway Glen Waverley) with gallery space, discussion corners, opportunity for practical response and pondering space.

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Australia’s Security: No nukes, and no fear!

October 15, 2007

6:00 pm

Hi Friends

Nuclear weapons are back on the agenda and we need your help to get rid of these worst weapons of terror.

Please join the letter writing campaign for the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN):
http://www.icanw.org/mpletters

Also, there is a great event coming up organised by ICAN and Pax Christi about Australia’s Security and the politics of fear - please try to get along!
Mon 15th October, 6pm
1st floor, Alan Gilbert Buildling, Cnr Grattan & Barry Sts, Carlton

Speakers:
Rev Simon Moyle
Dr Tilman Ruff
Prof Joe Camilleri

Burma Candlelight Vigil TONIGHT

September 27, 2007

6:30 pm

As hundreds of thousands Monks and Nuns march in Burma, please join the people of Burma living in Australia for a candlelight vigil to support the monks and peaceful protesters in Burma. The Australia Burma Network supports the people of Burma in this time of political transition and peace, reconciliation and democracy.

Where: Front of Melbourne State Library

When: 6.30 pm Thursday 27 September 2007

Please bring candles if you are able

For enquiries contact burmanetwork@gmail.com or 0412 071 935

Liquid Church

Below is the sections I lifted from Liquid Church (Pete Ward (2002) Hendrickson Publishers) for an elective at UCA/vic/tas Synod this week. The electives had to fit in with the title “Mission as…” I called the elective -Mission as a ‘double latte no sugar thanks’

Anyhoo thought other may like to hear and chat about some of Pete’s thinking.

Solid Church
“The local church may support many good and important activities, including mission trips, evangelism, youth ministry, social projects, and so on, but they are all assessed in terms of their effect or otherwise on regular Sunday attendance. People may have turned to Christ through the youth mission or Alpha course, and this is good, but they are not banked, they don’t count, until they start to attend Sunday Services.”

The Mutating Church
Church as Heritage Site
Church locked in a cultural time warp. As living expressions of worship from another era… Far from being a turn off, for some… attractive precisely because it offers a slice of living history. ..Church preserves the tradition of the past and makes them accessible to new generations.

Church as Refuge
fluid modernity offers little support or shelter… look for welcoming places… sense of togetherness and safety… church develops into a place or refuge where we retreat for a while. to be Christian is to be part of a wider family group. Feed belonging.. a Christianised version of the wider culture, church basketball, golf, youth band, movies, schools, plumbers, lawyers, gardeners….The bigger the shelter, the more comfortable it becomes…

Church as Nostalgic Community
Closely related to refuge and heritage, this mutation … relates to its conception of self rather than reality. … a kind of lament for what existed ….. nostalgic community sells itself as the one place where communal meetings remain possible in society. We tell ourselves that in church young and old gather together in ways they never do outside church…. more wish fulfillment than reality. Congregations are generally monocultures reflecting taste…. black and white most often worship separately, as do working class and the middle class.

Liquid Church
Liquid church is essential because it takes the present culture seriously and seeks to express the fullness of the Christian gospel within that culture.

A liquid is charactised by flow. Flow means that the particle in a liquid move over each other freely so that he liquid can appear to be continually on the move….Movement and flow are basic to the nature of liquid. If we are to envisage a liquid church, then movement and change must be part of its basic characteristics. We need to let go of the static model of church that is based primarily on congregations and buildings. In its place we need to develop a notion of Christian community, worship, mission, and organisation that is more flexible and responsive to change…. Liquid church would work to express itself as a series of movements or flows. As with liquid, there would be a spreading, oozing, spilling character to these flows.

A liquid church reformation.

New JustAct website (and action!)

Check out the new JustAct website!

Comparing our Standards

Did you know that the amount humanity currently consumes is more than the earth can sustain? How is this possible? Think about the world as being a bank account. If we simply live off the interest then (theory has it) we can sustain the capital indefinitely. However, if we start eating into the capital then we can do it for a little while, but eventually we will be left with no money. If we curb our spending, we can allow the interest to build again in order to make it more sustainable.

What are the real costs of spending? Find out.

Step 1
Discover what the average environmental costs are for the amount of consumption in your suburb in Australia.

Step 2
Now calculate how your own consumption impacts on the environment with the Eco-calculator.

Step 3
If we are serious about global equality we need to cut down on our own consumption. There is a direct link between how we use the Earth’s resources and the poverty that millions live in. Start changing this today!

Develop your own Action Plan and calculate the amount of resources you will be saving when you start living that Plan.

Good luck. And remember together we are changing this world!

For all the actions visit JustAct site

Stand Up For Your Rights Comedy Gala

October 6, 2007
7:00 pm	to	10:00 pm

Saturday 6 October, 7.00pm, Her Majesty’s Theatre

Here is you chance to see some of Australia’s funniest comedians in Amnesty International’s Stand Up For Your Rights Comedy Gala!

Featuring the cream of Australian comedy, including Tom Gleeson, Andrew McClelland, Greg Fleet, Dave O’Neil, Wilson Dixon, Alison Bice and Courtney Hocking to name just a few, Stand Up For Your Rights has been a roaring success in years gone by, and promises to take the roof off this year!!

Alongside the hilarity, the night will campaign against the practice of arbitrary detention, which has recently been brought to the world’s attention through the cases of David Hicks, Dr. Haneef and the US run unlawful detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

Tickets: $49.90 full / $34.90 concession + group (10+)

National Close the Gap Day

National Close the Gap Day - Tuesday 18 September 2007 - will give Australians across the nation the opportunity to come together and show their support for closing the 17-year life expectancy gap between Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders and other Australians. Why not organise your own small-scale event with our help? You can also get involved in other ways.Get Involved

• Organise your own event
• Register your event today
• Sign the pledge
• Send an e-card about the campaign
• Watch our video on YouTube
• Visit the Close the Gap campaign page

Generous Revolution

As many of you know I consider generousity, creativity and hospitality to be very subversive practices. They each imagine and transform our world of self interests into a shared spaces of possibility.

Theologically I think this Generous Revolution is based (at least for the Christians) in the counter cultural stance and teaching of Jesus. I am thinking of teachings like
“lose your life to gain it” (Mk 8:35),
“give to those who can not repay you”(Lk 6:34),
“Give to those that ask” (Mt 5:42-6:3)
“give to all who ask of you”, Go sell all you have and it to the poor” (Lk 18:22)
“When you have a party don’t invite your friends who can invite you in return… invite the homeless and the outcast”(Lk 14:12-14),
“Zaccheaus the tax collector giving half his property away and repaying four times what he ripped off”(Lk 19:8),
The early church sharing all they had (Acts 4:32-35)
The great socialist parable of the vineyard workers who all get paid the days wage no matter how long they work (Mt 20:1-16)…this ends with “what business is it of you if I want to be generous”
Plus more - I’m sure.

A while ago I was hearing about the “gift” culture of traditional New Zealand and how it contrasts the “acquisition” culture of the consumer/capitalist world view. (Hey Manu or Graham if want to unpack how this works…feel free to jump in.) Since then I have been wondering about Give Way signs. And how they could be played with to encourage thoughts about giving and generousity…. So hear are a few ideas.

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The Emergent’s Creed

Found this in the July/August edition of The Wittenburg Door. Enjoy!

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