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Urban Seed at Forge Festival

March 04, 2008

Festival details here

List of electives at the Urban Seed hub:
All workshop participants are to meet at Credo Café. Credo is at the end of Baptist Place off Little Collins Street between Russell and Swanston Streets for a 1:30 start.

Dave Fagg
Elective: Regional Mission: following Jesus outside the city gate. Explore the distinctive nature of church and mission in regional areas.

Workshop: Outdoor Education and the gospel: Explore the possibilities of using experiences in creation to foster Christ-like personal and community development.

Dave Fagg is a secondary school teacher, writer and community worker. With his wife Kylie, Dave has spent the last 13 years trying to follow Jesus amongst the poor in Melbourne, Bendigo and overseas. Dave is passionate about a life of costly mission among the marginalised, the transformation of neighbourhoods through Christ-like compassion and shaping a theology & spirituality that sustains this life. He co-ordinates the Praxis course, and is a member of Seeds, a network of covenanted communities living in poor neighbourhoods in Footscray, Geelong and Bendigo.

Mark Holt

Elective: Global perspectives: Neighbourhood & dialogue; empowering communities to find their own distinctive ways of following Jesus

Workshop: Interfaith dialogue: A visit to East Melbourne mosque followed by a reflective debrief.

Mark is the State director of Global Interaction Victoria. His background is in dairy farming, hay carting, carpentry, missionary work & pastoring, He likes Surfing, reading good books, seeing good movies, good coffee. His favourite movie is The Matrix. He’s been married to Val for 31 years and has three children.

Jonathan Cornford

Elective: Intro to the Economy of God: What is God's vision for how we practice economics? Why is it one of the defining discipleship issues for us today? Explore biblical perspectives on 'the Economy of God' and implications for us today.
Workshop: Household Covenanting: The Household Covenant is one way of trying to grapple practically with the enormous challenges of trying to re-orient our lives to the Economy of God. It is a tool which can be personally tailored to anyone wanting to take steps in this direction.

Jonathan Cornford lives in Footscray and is a member of the Common Rule. He works part time as an Advocacy Coordinator with Oxfam Australia, and in his spare time talks a lot about faith, economics, politics n'stuff.

Simon Moyle

Elective: Corey, the Chaser, and Jesus: radical faithfulness in a world of domination
Mohandas Gandhi often said that Jesus was the most active person of nonviolence in history - and the only people who don't know that Jesus was nonviolent are Christians. We'll explore what nonviolence is - and isn't - and how we might deepen our faithfulness to Jesus' radical call to disarm our hearts, love our enemies, and be blessed peacemakers.

Workshop: Subverting the Empire: Practical Tools For Costly Discipleship
If nonviolence isn't passive, how do we begin to actively tackle injustice through direct action? This workshop will give you some practical tools to engage in social change at personal, interpersonal and global levels.

Simon is a Baptist minister working with a small faith community in the inner north of Melbourne. He is a nonviolence activist and educator, who is passionate about creating cultures of peace, and was arrested last year for playing frisbee with Australian and US troops during military exercises.

Brent Lyons Lee & Ray Simpson

Elective: New Monasticism, Creating Villages of God: The emerging church seeks flexible frameworks which enable all people to move and grow and flow with God’s Spirit within the natural patterns around them. Ray and Brent will reflect on their recently released book, Emerging Downunder, which suggests ways the fragmented church may reconnect both with its roots and the contemporary environment, providing practical examples of church that bring praying, eating, learning and hospitality together in one place.
Workshop: Discernment Walk: We will take a walk around the ‘Paris End’ of Melbourne and learn the ways that Urban Seed was able to discern its surroundings and apply some ancient monastic insights to change its neighbourhood.

Ray Simpson is a celibate Anglican Priest and has been a minister in churches in Britain’s industrial Midlands, multi-racial London, and rural East Anglia. Since moving to the Holy Island of Lindisfarne in 1996 he has been a consultant to pastors and priests who are at the work face of the emerging church, and has networked with congregations which seek to renew the inherited church and develop fresh expressions. He is the Guardian of The Community of Aidan and Hilda and is the author of a number of best-selling books on Celtic spirituality, including his most recent A Pilgrim Way: New Celtic Monasticism for Everyday People.
Brent Lyons Lee has worked for several years with Urban Seed in Melbourne’s CBD dealing with issues of poverty and wealth in an urban context. He is the ‘Minister’ of a community of people working from the Norlane Baptist Church, an hour from Melbourne in a low socio-economic suburb. He is married to Belinda and has studied both Theology and Social Science.

Gordon Preece

Elective: Mind the Gap Between Faith & Work
1. Outlining the biblical vision for everyday Christians engaged in connecting the Kingdom and their workaday world.
2. Identifying the theological and contemporary circumstantial reasons for the gap between faith & work, church and the scattered people of God, Sunday & Monday.

Workshop – Bridging the Gap between Faith & Work
3.This builds on the elective encouraging participants to develop alternative theological and strategic perspectives for enabling churches and Christians to re-engage the work-worlds of their scattered people as the front-line of mission.
Rev'd Dr Gordon Preece is Executive Director Urban Seed, Commissioning Editor, Zadok Perspectives, former director of Ridley College Centre of Applied Christian Ethics and Macquarie Christian Studies Institute. He comes from a small business family and has been involved with unemployed and mentally ill people, job and business creation projects. He teaches for Macquarie University School of Applied Finance and is Ethical Investment Consultant to Christian Super. He’s interested in work as a form of occupational therapy and sport (esp. soccer/football) as a form of spirituality.

Marcus Curnow

Elective: "It's Just Not Cricket: Spirituality of Sport and Mission"
In the midst of the 'monkey business' of a Kentucky Fried Cricket world, Urban Seed has committed itself to 'Credo Cricket'; public expressions of sport you can believe in. (www.myspace.com/credocricket) Sport plays a huge role in shaping community, cultural and even religious expression in the Australian psyche. This seminar will explore the contemporary theology of sport, with Christianity and practical expressions of grassroots approaches and strategies for 'grassroots' engagement.

Workshop: Credo Cricket- Melbourne Laneway Cricket: Forge Festival explores Melbourne's laneways for a different kind of 'hit.' Join with the 'Bin Juice Bradman's' and the 'Milk Crate Merv's' for a game of Laneway Cricket. Hear about Urban Seed's recent laneway cricket carnival held in conjunction with Cricket Australia as a means of bringing church, business and welfare services together.

Marcus has been involved with Urban Seed, a Christian community based ministry of hospitality and advocacy in the heart of Melbourne since 1996. Marcus has worked as a youth worker in a variety of cultural contexts and now convenes a regional expression of Urban Seed (Seeds Footscray), where he resides with Rachael and their three kids. He has degrees in Nursing and Theology. He believes that Jesus chose twelve in order to play cricket; that Bible study shouldn’t suck; that good liturgy requires risk; that Cornwall (the home of his forebears) is not England and that when in doubt, “Its the Economy of God stupid”! It has oft been said that he could use a bit more sleep.

Kate Allen

Elective: Raisin scones or risky subversion? The word hospitality evokes images of tea parties, bland conversations and a general atmosphere of coziness. Yet one of the key Greek words for hospitality means kindness to the stranger. Kate and some other Urban Seeders will share their experiences of hospitality, and how they have come to connect it with justice, discipleship and mission.

Workshop: Creating Safety: Join the team in a discussion about the ins and outs of open community meals, including practical ideas about safety creation.

Kate was a resident in Central House during 2005, and has since continued her involvement with Urban Seed co-ordinating philanthropic relationships and special projects. She also conducts educational programs for school, corporate and community groups as part of the Youth and Schools Team. She has a Master of Social Science (International Development) from RMIT and a passion for exploring connections between the work for justice on the global and local levels. She’s involved in a faltering but dedicated Christian community called Loam in Melbourne’s northern suburbs and believes that vegetable gardens and shared meals can bridge all manner of gaps.

(SUNDAY ONLY)

Sally Quin

Elective: Growing a green mission
Treading lightly on the earth and incorporating sustainable practices in mission. Explore ways of caring for both people and the earth together!

Workshop: Visit ‘eeko’ – an op-shop reinvented with a green twist!! at 318 Victoria St, Brunswick - just off Sydney Rd
Green Collect and Baptcare have just launched a new enterprise that brings together environmental action, sustainable purchasing and community building all in one place. EEKO is an Environmentally & Ethically Kind Op-shop that works with the local community to engage actively in social and environmental action. You will be able to see how this model works, find out how it was developed and consider how it might look in your community! There will also be a chance buy recycled and fair-trade products that tell a good story.

Sally has been involved in exploring new models of mission through many community development, social justice, business and grassroots projects. Together Darren and Sally have established Green Collect, a not-for-profit environmental enterprise that creates new opportunities for employment, training and belonging, while promoting care for the earth. Sal and Daz have lived in Footscray for the last 10 years and are actively involved in their local community with their kids, Elijah, Lily and Pearl. In sharing their lives and work with a diverse community of people and dreaming up new ideas everyday, they enjoy a fast moving and full life!

(SUNDAY ONLY)

Jon Chamberlain & Samara Pitt

Elective: Jon Chamberlain and the Collins Street Baptist Church: How to engage your church in indigenous reconciliation.

Workshop: Samara Pitt ‘Another View’ walk revisited: We’ll go on a walk around the city that tells some stories of Aboriginal presence and custodianship in Melbourne, and our encounters with an alternative perspective on a familiar place. What does this view raise for us as whitefella/non-Indigneous people? Where do we go beyond just saying ‘sorry’?

Jon is a Pastor at the Collins Street Baptits Church and lives in Footscray with his wife Lucy and their beautiful son Ben. Jon continues his Master of Divinity studies at the Melbourne College of Divinity. Having worked in business consulting (9 years with PriceWaterhouseCoopers) and human development (6 years with World Vision Australia and International), Jon joined Collins Street in August 2005 because he has come to appreciate that there really is only one game in town: the deep and broad gathering up of the whole creation by the Spirit of God into the future new creation of all things (and because he felt a light tap on the shoulder).

Samara Pitt has worked for the Urban Seed Youth and Schools team since 2003, running walks and seminars on issues of homelessness and marginalisation in Melbourne. She lives in the "Indigenous Hospitality House" in North Carlton, a volunteer community which hosts indigenous guests from country Victoria and interstate. She is interested in finding ways to explore belonging and identity as an immigrant Australian in Indigenous land.

(SUNDAY ONLY)

Posted by brent at March 4, 2008 08:36 AM