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

Burma Candlelight Vigil TONIGHT

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

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. Most of my current thoughts involve white stickers like name tags either blank or with a new letter. I?m pretty sure defacing a give way sign is not very legal. Please bear this in mind. The T-Shirt are however - legal.? ?Culture jamming is fun.

Last term I was wearing my ?give? shirt to drop JJ at school. A conversation with a quick thinking kids went like this:
K: ?That shirt just says ?Give? not ?Give Way?.?
me: ?Yes?
K: ?Well give me your money then!?
Me: ?It is interesting that when you read the word ?Give? your first thought is to ?Take?. Don?t you think??
K ?uh??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.

…. So hear are a few ideas.

and a this post as a discussion sheet generousrevolutionsheet

[Read more]

The Emergent’s Creed

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

[Read more]

We Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers

This made me chuckle and then feel quite challenged…..

 

“The matter is quite simple. The bible is very easy to understand. But we Christians are a bunch of scheming swindlers. We pretend to be unable to understand it because we know very well that the minute we understand, we are obliged to act accordingly. Take any words in the New Testament and forget everything except pledging yourself to act accordingly. My God, you will say, if I do that my whole life will be ruined. How would I ever get on in the world? Herein lies the real place of Christian scholarship. Christian scholarship is the Church’s prodigious invention to defend itself against the Bible, to ensure that we can continue to be good Christians without the Bible coming too close. Oh, priceless scholarship, what would we do without you? Dreadful it is to fall into the hands of the living God. Yes it is even dreadful to be alone with the New Testament.”

Soren Kierkegaard

MPH-Meet your Ministers (Monash electorate)

Every day 30,000 children die from poverty-related causes. As a nation, Australians do care. We are among the most generous givers to overseas aid in the world. But are our political leaders doing enough in the fight against global poverty? 2007 marks the half way point to meet the commitment of halving absolute poverty by 2015. It is also an election year. You can help Australia meet its commitments!

Come and meet party representatives who are shaping Australia?s response to the issue of global poverty. Be part of this unique opportunity to share your thoughts and challenge our leaders about Australia?s support for people living in poverty.

Download a flyer 5285-mph-forum-invite-vic-final.pdf

Date: Wednesday 26 September 2007
Time: 7:30-8:30pm
Location: Wesley College Cato Hall, 620 High Street Road
Glen Waverley, Victoria Enter via Gate 3 & 4
Speakers:
Mr Bob McMullan MP, Labor Party
Shadow Minister for International Development Assistance
The Hon Greg Hunt MP, Liberal Party
Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Foreign Affairs

RSVP:
Jane McGeough from TEAR Australia on
janemc@tear.org.au

Make Poverty History and Micah Challenge are a coalition of more than 60 aid agencies,community groups and religious organisations.

Climate Change Action (APEC focused)

The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation forum has admitted that real action on climate change is only on their aspirational agenda of things to do. In a series of internatinally coordinated action to bring attention to APEC?s lack of real targets on climate change, banners and human signs of the above image will be created from the Barrier Reef to Bondi…and of course here in Melbourne.

On Friday there will be a massive 144m-square banner unfurling and media event at Bondi Beach at 8.30am (northern end of the beach), which will be followed by similar events around the world over the following 48 hours. These include events at the North Pole, Great Barrier Reef, and Melbourne?s Federation Square Sunday lunchtime.

Where?Federation Square. Melbourne

When?Sunday, September 9 @ midday

Why? To give APEC, and the Australian Government, a target to aim for on climate change.

Wear?red t-shirt/jumper for the photo

We need as many people as possible to come out for a few hours on midday, Sunday September 9, and be part of creating a target for APEC to aim at on climate change.

In the spirit of all quick turn around snap media actions, this is going to be fun, quick and painless.

For more information contact; louise.morris@envict.org.au

If you want to be part of this action please get in touch with Louise Morris louise.morris@envict.org.au for event details and what you can do to help.

www.walkagainstwarming.org.au

www.TheBigSwitch.org.au

Louise Morris

Climate Change Campaigner

Environment Victoria

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