Of course...

I wasn't really "hired" to imagine, i was hired to implement. Thing is I suck at implementation cause I'm too busy imagining how it could be. So while it was assumed I was merely there (my last church leadership "position") to "build" worship teams I was asking questions that cut right to the heart of the worshipping community. It really makes one consider how little imagining is going on particularily when it comes to Church services and Christian gatherings.

How does one even begin implementation without the imagination of the community having been ignited and allowed to expand?

Instead of viewing my experience of spiritual leadership as a mistake, disaster, failure etc. (all of which it was and more) I chose to at least try to see it as a launch or spring pad to something new outside the walls of the church. You know, embrace the pain, wounded healer and all that. Having become aware of my own pain and disfunction, even mental instability yet imprinted with some significant touches of the Spirit which continue to speak prophetically albeit perhaps only between my own 2 ears now? (someone tell me it's not true)

Getting turned on to Nouwen and Peck by fellow minister Geoff John West is an experience that has helped in the transformation. and of course the hours of searching and interacting with emergent and transmil types. Yes many hours that I should've been "implementing" exactly what the community was expecting from me, instead spent obsessively digging through books, message boards, web sites...for the truth. All of my yahoo chats and emails with Tim King and Jay Gary.

Am I just now confused as to my purpose? Afterall I'm just a songwriter right? Is there yet any pastoral / spiritual leadership aspect to my existence? Will the prophetic aspect of my music simply flow into the world of pop music only to become diseminated in the postmodern ooze?

I was the 3rd boy in our family but "supposed to be a girl". Yes I would've been named "Gloria". When I was found to be a boy my parents sensed and had hopes of me being a pastor. During a devotional prayer time at my last visit to Winnipeg for Lydia's funeral, mom and dad seemed to find some sort of fulfillment in this "calling" when they considered my passions. No I am not on staff as a "pastor" anywhere and probably will never be. I just can't shake this desire to shepherd, to somehow catalyst community, to see spiritual renewal and revolution, transformation. Problem is: is there ANYWHERE where people want to "waste time" imagining a new reality? Way too many of the answers are filled in most places I look. I know I know I'm a bit like my name sake the apostle Paul in that "my letters are heavy but in person I'm weak and hard of speech".

Yes it's true I've invested my time and energy into future fantasizing. Waste of time? Foolish? I don't know but I've imagined some pretty amazing things and clumsily attempted to translate it to others. Words, words, words...so meaningless, so empty, so futile.

for now

paul

Alternative Community

Hey,

Haven't blogged for a while. I'm sure my thousands of readers are wondering what happened to me.

I got my hands back on "The Prophetic Imagination" by Brueggemann. I had lent it out to my "four square Buddhist" friend "Ben". I'd like to get in touch with Steve (n) Martin who i met once at Second Cup with whom I'd like to explore Brueggemann's work and what it means to us today. A few quotes that have resonated with me as I consider the prophetic imagination at work in me. Perhaps some of you can identify.

"The task of prophetic ministry is to nurture, nourish, and evoke a consciousness and perception alternative to the consciousness and perception of the dominant culture around us"

" We need to ask not whether it is realistic or practical or viable but whether it is IMAGINABLE. We need to ask if our consciousness and imagination have been so assaulted and co-opted by the royal consciousness that we have been robbed of the courage or power to think an alternative thought."

"...a prophet in Israel is that of poetry and lyric. The prophet engages in futuring fantasy. The prophet does not ask if the vision can be implemented, for questions of implementation are of no consequence until the vision can be imagined. The imagination must come before implementation."

"Our culture is competent to implement almost anything and to imagine almost nothing."

Can we imagine together? what happened to me back at Calvary Baptist was a few of us were engaged in prophetically imagining something alternative to the "royal consciousness". Well to put it mildly, it didn't go over very well. Despite the energizing effect of embracing pathos and the significant moving of the spirit, it just didn't take. The numbing effect of the dominant consciousness proved the safe way out for many.

"The royal consciousness leads people to numbness, especially to numbness about death. It is the task of prophetic ministry and imagination to bring people to engage their experience of suffering and death."

"clearly the regime is interested not in what people experience but in their behavior, which can be managed."

peace

Paul