As the West increases its post-Christian descent, how to live and love demands more diverse questions about an individual’s application, coupled with the more corporate integration. These interrogations translate into the content, shape, and substance of life as mission into ministry. In my relative youthful ignorance in the mid-to-late nineties, the door opened to pioneer and lead a missional ministry that could be described as historically distinctive than previous iterations. This would suit my person and place, helping to inform assumptions about what can be reasonable, even possible, into a new today. And on any new today. This is not about engaging in the weird and the wacky, but thinking through how the lines of the Gospel and the trajectories of the Bible’s storyline can potentially intersect with a given time, at a certain place; in light of the available gifts, talents, and opportunities. I think a larger positive of this parcel follows through because one has first sought to comprehensively connect the larger ideas of the biblical worldview into how this can be temporally and practically fruitful. This can represent the type of faithful saturation, which evicts as dereliction any public versus private compartmentalisation, and seeks existential coherency, believing God’s mission affects everything, and is therefore, seeking ways to let this flourishing find finishing. This requires time, and the imitating gift of previous generations, who have not gone silent in retreat, but who are still leading the charge in the way they advocate and open doors, on a purposeful future.
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This was the wall at revinyl (with a flipped “e” for meaning and effect). This was a boutique retro clothing store; working out of my own fashion victim status, and The Salvation Army second-hand store connections. The rest of the walls were silver. We had a corrugated iron changing-room. There were hand-made racks. And a styley tread-plate counter. We had the narrative. With the help of a good team, we made it happen.
Unfortunately, the pixelation on this image was for creative usage (paradoxically, it does not appear as pixelated on a mobile device, where you receive a more coherent indication), and as of today, it is the only one I can find. If I locate any more, I will load a couple. This is pre-the-digital camera epidemic, which doesn’t help, but I trust you still get a real sense. You could say our goal was to make Palmerston North look beautiful on both the inside and outside. Okay, I just ordered extra cheddar with that line.
You’ll now just have to read on, and so, work it off.