Over the weekend I joined up with a freeze flash mob raising awareness of the sex trafficking trade and calling for an end to the practice.
The protest was organised by Adrian Greenwood from the More Praxis network, an expression of the Uniting Church in Australia, Victoria/Tasmania Synod. Many of the participants were attending the Forge Grassroots Festival. The idea was for a group to freeze on cue for five minutes, while pedestrians walked past, stopped and stared, or took brochures. It’s designed to be a non violent, viral kind of exercise that invites others to engage in their own way.
Interestingly enough the photograph here shows a freeze flash mob outside The Body Shop. Anita Roddick, founder of the Body Shop, was a strong advocate for the introduction of a new European convention against the trafficking of human beings.
This YouTube clip was prepared by Darren Wright, who while freezing in Bourke St had his camera on rapid photography mode.
I spent Saturday and Sunday afternoons of the Forge Grassroots Festival based at the UCA Hub in Little Collins Street, Melbourne. Cheryl Lawrie (of [hold :: this space]) (right below), Sam Charlesworth (middle) and Blythe Toll (left below) worked with a team to transform a corporate car park into Holy Ground : : Holy City. I was there to talk with interested people about alternatives to standard models of worship - a conversation deeply enhanced by the environment in which we met.
The burning bush/sacred ground experience of Moses was juxtaposed with the glimpses of God’s redeeming, transforming, hope-giving presence in the cities. iPods hanging from the ceiling showed video clips of the Tianenmen Square protester, the monks protests in Burma, and the destruction of the Berlin Wall. Around the walls and ceilings were projected films and photographs of pedestrian traffic in Melbourne. This was an invitation to explore the small clues to life, including the nature of concrete, cigarette butts and shoes.
In the middle was a space surrounded by security tape, with the words “Do Not Enter”, alongside phrases connecting the sacred ground experience of Moses with our experience.
Out on the wall outside was a chalk outline of the cityscape, with the words “New Earth”, and the invitation to dream of a future life for the city.
Andrew Jones, known online as Tall Skinny Kiwi (after his blogging identity of ten years), was the guest speaker at tonight’s Forge Grassroots Festival in Melbourne, Australia.
Andrew grew up in Orewa, New Zealand, before moving to Perth in Western Australia. Tonight we heard about Andrew’s early fundamentalist street evangelism days - the importance of having a go and having encouragement to try things out. Since those days in the early 1980s Andrew has spent time working in and out of the United States, in Prague, in a campervan travelling around continental Europe, and now living in the Orkney Islands, Scotland.
Andrew is one of those guys who has you on the edge of your seat, wondering how it’s all going to turn out. He’s self-deprecating (as Kiwis know how), witty, and insightful, sometimes appearing to be surprised by the gems of understanding he passes on to us.
Tonight’s gems came from an exploration of what church planting looks like from a rhizome framework rather than multiplication model. He talked about the diversity of rhizomes, and the spreading wide rather than building high approach to sharing ideas, values, beliefs and action. We heard about the connection Gilles Deleuze made with the rhizome biology and philosophy, and how that inspired the World Wide Web framework.
Andrew’s thoughts on being prepared to risk reputation and associate with weirdos was a timely reminder to the Australian missional church movement not to be afraid to associate with those American Emergents who have been slated for their sloppy theology. Not that Andrew said that directly. But the message was there loud and clear in his own experience of moving from the position of a fundamentalist Baptist to a more relaxed Baptist who is available to work with whoever God places him with.
