Seedy Spirituality

Know, Grow, Go…Slow! 
An Introduction to Living The Seeds Covenant

(chapter headings for a book I will try to live but will probably never write!)

Introduction:

  • On Making our Mark :  The Story of The Seeds Network
  • On Learning to Know, Grow and Go… Slow!
  • The Five Marks of Seeds Covenant Communities

 

The First Mark: ‘The Connections’

Living In Proximity To Each Other And ‘The Poor’

 Proximity

 

  • Proximity as:
    • Communication
    • Geography
    • Ideology
    • Relationship
    • “The Only Communities that work are those of Necessity”: On Walking Distance, Carbon Fired Poverty & Post Carbon “Necessity”
    • What different Seed ‘mobs’ do re Proximity…

Defining ‘Each Other’

 

  • Who is my family?  Mark 3:33
  • Clari-fying Expectations of Community
    • The need for Community vs. ‘Communitas’
    • The need for Mono-culture vs. Healthy Bio-Diversity:
    • The need for Mission Team vs. Therapy Group, Vocation & Intimacy.
    • New Monasticism: The Eremitical vs. Mendicant Charism
    • On Tepees’, Counter Culture & Christian Community Trendiness.
    • The Enneagram & Community Diversity
    • Tribes: Traditional vs. Consumer Culture; Kinship: Fictive & Real
    • “Lord is there one, whose care will ever be there, in my hour of need” : Dorothy (Day), The Long Loneliness & Activism
    • “One of you will betray me”: On Eucharist Community, Disappointment, Failure, Reconciliation & Forgiveness

 Defining ‘The Poor’

 

  • Why ‘The Poor’?
  • Loving and Hating ‘Poverty’:  On The Poverty & Abundance of Enough
  • Making Poverty History vs.  Making Poverty Personal with Dorothy, Dave, Ash & Jon (Day, Fagg, Barker, Cornford)

Beyond ‘Definitions’

  • Fuzziness & Clarity:
    • Facilitating the Formal & the Informal
    • Onions & Layers: On Being Committed at the Core and Open at the Edges
    • Holding The Egg:  On Being Wise as Snakes & Gentle as Doves…

 

 

The Second Mark: ‘The Conversation’

Talking Slow about Know, Grow, Go!

 

  • Radical Discipleship, Ecumenism and Renewal
  • Thinking, Speaking & Knowing in a Post-Modern World: The Conversation with Brian & Tim (McLaren & Costello)
  • On Truth & Troth with Brian & Slyvia (Walsh and Keesmaat)
  • Orthodoxy vs. Orthopraxis
  • Jesus as Questioner of our Faith, Church & World: Organising our Theology by Right Answers or Right Questions?
  • The Quaker Legacy: On Testimonies, Queries & Advices
  • The Seeds Queries: Why Know, Grow, Go…Slow?
  • ‘Forming, Norm-ing & Per-forming’: The ‘How To’ of ‘The Conversation’ within different Seeds mobs

The Third Mark:  “The Commitments” 

The Embodiment & Public Expression of “Know, Grow, Go.

 

  • Christianity, Embodiment & Incarnation
  • The Two Bodies:  Personal Body & Body Politic
  • Seeds as a Collective Covenant in a ‘Me, My, Mine’ World
  • Salt & Light:  Private vs. Public Witness

Embodying Know the Word

 

  • Story & Identity between Seminary, Sanctuary and Street: Reading the Bible with Ched, Bill & Stan (Myers, Stringfellow & Hauerwas)
  • Consumer Spirituality vs. Radical Prayer:
    • Richard (Foster) & Living Streams
    • Gospel Prayer: The ‘Our Father’, John & Abiding Love, Mark & Therapeutic Watchfulness.
    • Perma-culture & Prayer
    • The Word is on the Street: Prayer & Discernment
    • “Knowing the Word Beyond Words”: Contemplation through Christian Meditation & Quaker ‘Listening’.
    • Gathered Worship:  Curation, Creativity & Community Development.
    • Rites of Passage:  Covenental ‘Bonding’ through Baptism, Weddings, Funerals etc.
    • “It’s not a Revolution if you Cant Dance to It!”: On Seedy Songs, Prayers, Written Liturgy & Rhythm
    • “The Kingdom Belongs to Such as These”: On Children, Knowledge & Godly Play
    • How different Seeds Mobs do ‘Know…’

Embodying Grow Home

 

  • Reimagining the Evangelical Disciplines:
  • Poverty
    • It’s the Economy of God Stupid!
    • Experiments in Economic Sharing & Common Work (see also Go Engage)
    • ‘You will never belong!’: On Class, Solidarity Proximity & Alien-ation
    • Poverty as Simplicity
    • Chastity:
      • The Vocation Marriage & Singleness,
      • Flesh, Fidelity & Fertility: On Wendell (Berry), Sex and Vegetables
      • Chastity as Solidarity
      • Obedience:
        • Understanding Our Power:  On Gender, Race & Class
        • Seeds Convenors, Decision Making & Power
        • The Spiritual Discipline of Protest & Civil Dis-obedience
        • Obedience as Service
      • Stability:
        • Taking Root through Downward Mobility: Space & Place in a Mobile World.

Embodying ‘Go Engage’

 

  • Transforming Mission: History & Paradigms with David (Bosh)
  • Re-imagining the Missionary Instructions of Jesus (Mark 6:)

Preaching:

  • On Story Telling, Evangelism & Narrative Therapy
  • Parables: “Earthly Stories with Heavenly Meanings vs. Earthy Stories with Heavy Meanings!”

Healing: 

  • Wholism: Biomedicine vs. Social Symbolic Frameworks
  • Healing as ‘Confronting Cause’
  • The Wounder Healer: Henri (Nouwen) & Mutuality.
  • The Give & Take of Healing Hospitality (Also see the Fourth Mark)
  • Wendell (Berry), The Body & The Earth:  On Finding Christ in the Compost & Our Non Human ‘Neighbours’!

Exorcism:

  • Confronting the Powers Within & Without with Walter (Wink)
  • Power, Protest & Symbolic Direct Action

What is Good Work?

  • On Genesis, Economics, Creation & Creativity
  • Common Work Traditions
  • Social Enterprise & Entrepreneurship

Vocation & Voice:

  • Work Values, Economy, Community & Identity
  • Part time vs. Full Time Work
  • Paid vs. Unpaid Work
  • Discerning Personal Calling Through Our Common Work.

 

The Fourth Mark:  Sharing Regular Meal’s

 

  • Seeds: A Taste of Slow… On Carlo Petrini, Jesus, Food & Freedom!
  • Meal Sharing as ‘Know’
    • Eucharist & ‘Emmaus Type’ Knowing
  • Meal Sharing as ‘Grow’
    • Eucharist & the Evangelical Disciplines
      • Poverty, Common Work & Food Preparation,
      • Chastity, Ethical Production & Consumption
  • Meal Sharing as ‘Go ‘
    • Eucharist & Feeding the Multitudes
  • How different Seeds mobs eat.

Mark 5. Participating in the Network & Broader Movements

 

  • Organisations vs. Organisms
  • Economies of Scale: Friends vs. Colleagues; Mobs vs. Jobs; Job Descriptions vs. Personal Calling
  • “It takes all Sorts!” On Living with Cleaners, Drivers, Prophets, Protesters, Teachers, Gardeners, Bean Counters, Healers, Apostles, etc…
  • The Acts of the Apostles: On Tipping Points, Movements & Theories of Social Change.
  • “Blessed are the Fundraisers”:  On Financing Movements
  • Growing Slow: Depth vs. Breadth
  • Measuring Success: Faithfulness vs. Effectiveness.
  • Apocalyptic Hope: Holding Our Nerve Amidst the Cycles of Hubris & Depression
  • Seeds and Revolutionary Patience:
    • The Seed Scattered: Picking out Stones, Sowing Seeds, Reaping the Harvest.
    • The Seed Grows How?
    • Growing Wheat Among Tares
    • The Smallest of Seeds & the Greatest of Trees.

Conclusion:

Unless a Seed Dies:

“In the end only love ever changes anything”

Dorothy Day