Potty-training

we're doing the potty-training thing...not for me, for my kids. so it was a weekend in for somer and me. didn't even get to a worship gathering today. but, they've both had a fair amount of success! o.k. I'll stop there, with a modicum of decency and privacy left for my children.

Let Two become Ten

Ten Percent - that's the far-out dream of a group of Christians in Dagenham. to see 10 percent of the population of Dagenham be part of the Jesus-worshipping community. this surprised me. you see, when I came to London, i had heard the grim statistics - that less than 10% of the population went to church once a month. but then i found out that in the few square miles surrounding our centre, there are something like 25 evangelical churches. i figured God must be doing something in this burrough that he wasn't in other parts of London.
but then we had a united prayer meeting on Thursday night. i found out from Mike, an anglican pastor with a church building that's 800 years old, that those 25 churches comprise only two or three percent of the population of Dagenham. he pulled me out of my daze and reminded me that there is much work to be done if Jesus is to be exalted as Lord in Dagenham. He wants us to begin praying that God would increase the number of christians in Dagenham to the psychologically significant ten percent mark in the next few years (he gave a target...2015 or something...i don't really remember). This is a crazy dream from where i stand...just the kind of dream i want to jump on board with and pray for, expecting God to show up.

TNIV

Just ordered a copy of the new Bible translation TNIV (Today's NIV). among other updates, it uses gender neutral language. Tim Bednar has a great post on the new tranlation here.
I'm a little wary of the translation because of the difficulty one often finds in expressing the third-person singular in a gender neutral way. "each one must give account of himself" becomes "we must give account of ourselves" - this gender neutral rendering makes it much less clear that it's people individually who must give account, and not a collective group...maybe that's my western individualism getting in the way, I don't know.
i find it interesting that on Tim's site and the TNIV site, the argument is being made that the TNIV more acurately represents the English language as it is currently used among young adults. in other words, young people who loosely fit the description "postmodern" are increasingly using gender neutral language to express themselves. this would not be true of most of the people i know, although most of the people i know are not "postmodern", though they are young. in the small subsection of english evangelicalism to which i'm currently connected in London, men are still very much dominant. i find myself correcting my use of male dominated language, and my collegues react with a kind of mild amusement. i like the idea of a translation that confronts men and our lust for power and control.
on the other hand, i may have reservations about removing the culture-bound elements from the text. i suppose you always do this when you translate from one language to another, but we can't (and shouldn't) erase the patriarchal nature of society in the Ancient Near East. It's often this culture that allows the egalitarian gospel to shine with such dramatic contrast.

Bible Reading Plan

Last week I realized that Somer and I have been reading the same parts of the Bible over and over again - Isaiah 43, Revelation 22:17, Psalm 1, 16, 36. All great passages, but it tends to make us lose perspective. so i've found a bible reading plan to help us read through the bible in a year. you can find it here. i like this guide because you read parts of the old testament and new testament on the same days. i suppose you lose the aspect of the unfolding story that you'd get from reading it straight through. i'm ambivalent about dividing the readings into "family" and "secret". i could do without the extra explanation McCheyne gives...it reminds me too much of presbyterians who still try to think and talk like that today...too much of the good stuff in my heritage is absolutized and therefore made useless. but, the bible reading plan is a good one, so I'll use it.

It's Snowing!

It's snowing in London! Laura called from the car with Julian to make sure we had seen it...they know how much we miss the snow in Philly. The real question is, will it still be around tomorrow morning? not holding my breath.

Airline Emissions

The Kyoto protocol went into effect this week, though not in the U.S. thanks to our unwillingness to ratify it. Pres. Bush claims there are fundamental flaws in the protocol...maybe he's right, I have no idea. One of the flaws that the report I was watching pointed to is the fact that airline emissions are not covered by the protocol - meaning planes can continue to spill as much pollution as they want. I stumbled across a site today that allows you to offset the amount of greenhouse gases your flight emits by contributing a small sum to help plant one or more trees. It's called Climate Care . For my recent flight from Philadelphia to London, we emitted 1.5 tons of CO2 into the upper atmosphere. For £10.50 I can plant a tree that will recover all of that pollution. Pretty cool.

The Ban, The Comfort, and The Call

Had to ban a guy from the Hub yesterday. he was abusive towards the centre staff. not terribly violent, but totally unwilling to obey any of the rules we have in place for the protection of everyone else at the Hub. he was especially hard on me - pushed me a couple times, spit on me, tackled me into a couch, and tried to shove a cookie in my face (this is a guy in his late teens, mind you). also blew smoke in my face...not tobacco smoke either. none of these things by itself would be all that bad, even as i write this i'm wondering if his behavior was all that terrible towards me.
by the end of the night, i was feeling a lot of anger and resentment, and also a bit of shame. why doesn't he respect me? he respects some of the other LCM staff there. why do i let his behavior bother me? should i just take it?
I came home and read the beatitudes from matthew 5 and 6 (o.k., I'll admit it: first i sat and stewed for about 3 hours, and then at 1 a.m. i picked up the bible 'cuz i had nowhere else to go). jesus' words were full of comfort. i was feeling like the lowest, weakest, poorest guy around, and jesus says in his kindgom those people are highly blessed. i don't think i'm reading too much into what he says to see the abuse i took at the Hub as part of what Jesus was talking about when he said that his family is blessed when people abuse and devour them, because they also abused and devoured him. there's something redemptive about suffering abuse silently for the name of Jesus.
jesus also had some challenging words for me last night. he also says in Matt 5-6 that life in his family involves laying down our rights for the sake of others, and putting our heart motives into perspective. take for example what he says about anger in relationship to how i felt towards the Hub lad. i was particularly challenged by his call to pray for our enemies.
i had prayed for this guy earlier in the evening, but it was more of a cheesy Christian prayer "God, please come into his life and make him a believer"; and it didn't really flow from a heart that cared for the guy. After reading Matthew, i prayed that God would bless him with a job, and that his mind would be clear (he's a bit crazy, whether from drugs or what i don't know). i did pray that God would change his heart, but this time out of a desire to see him choose life instead of death, and desiring to see Jesus exalted as darkness is overcome by the light.
the bad feelings aren't gone, and i'm still struggling to figure out how to follow Jesus in the way of wisdom concerning how we as a centre should deal with behavior at the hub in the future, and what kind of relationship we should have with the guys (rule enforcers, friends, mentors, flies on the wall, all of the above?).

One Month

I was writting an update to our prayer team and realized we've been here in London for a whole month! We marked the occassion by driving to Romford in our new car and having lunch at a pub. our first pub visit since we've been here. the whole family ate for under 8 pounds. I had my indian fix for the week.

Car

We have a car! From the great folks at Ichthus Motor Mission . It's a Skoda - kind of a cheap VW. hatchback - huge trunk. about 10 yrs old or so, and in great condition. best part is, it's very cheap. we basically donate a monthly amount for insurance and road tax, plus a small per-mile subsidy to cover repairs. but it's very cheap compared to trying to buy and maintain one ourselves. wonderful experience. God's blessings on Ichthus and the sister/brother who donated the car we're now driving. I'll try to update this post soon with a picture of the car.

City Gates

Visited City Gates this morning. A fairly diverse church. many different countries and races represented, not many of them white. We showed up 15 minutes late and we still got to sing for an hour! we felt very welcome - kids were allowed to stay in the main service and they had a little play area in the back with toys. it was still hard for us to concentrate, and fairly stressful, but it didn't feel like anyone else minded the girls being there, and they certainly weren't the only ones being loud.
It was a fairly mixed group generationally as well. they have a strong outreach to troubled youth that's made some headlines this week - it's losing money from the government in the form of grants because it's too "Christian".
We'll probably go back next week. I'm interested to hear a Charismatic perspective on tongues...the pastor mentioned he'd be saying something about it next week during the sermon.

[update] Thanks, Steph, for the full link to their site.

Many cultures, one Essex

I've spoken at all sorts of different meetings this week. they all feel like they're part of their own universe.
the wednesday afternoon worship gathering at Bethel Centre. spoke on exodus 17 - water in the desert. many of the old people fell asleep during my talk...but julian says they fall asleep every week.
thursday i did the bible talk at the kids club at Ley Street chapel. talked on the exodus as God's keeping his promise, and jesus being the ultimate promise kept - both from God's perspective and ours. not sure how they took it...youth work is still new to me. as are urban kids in general. we again had to call the police, but the boy who was trying to force his way in left before we finished the call and so they didn't come.
today i shared at the evening gathering at Bethel (apparently we have a once-a-month service on Sunday nights). shared our story and a meditation from psalm 36. about 15 people there, mostly older, but there was another family w/ kids.
tuesday i'm doing a talk at the younger Hub.
all very nice. but i feel a bit like i'm on one of those turn-tables that you use to store kitchen gadgets. one minute i'm facing one context, another minute i'm facing another. the worlds don't seem to have much in common, even though the people live in the same parts of town and are from the same country. many cultures, one north-east London.

Groovin'

Starting to groove to the rythm of our life in Essex. Tuesday and Thursday are the l...o...n...g... days. Door-to-door and visitation in the morning/afternoon, plus any odd jobs that need done around the center. Preparation for the evening's activities in the late afternoon, followed by the Hub on Tues and kids club at Ley Street on Thurs. The weekend feels like it starts on Thursday night, though, because Friday is a nice short day, with Moms & Tots in the morning at Bethel, and then the weekend officially starts. Monday is a nice "ease into the week" day, with visitation and general service to people in the community.
I say "our life in Essex" because I'm figuring out that while we are officially part of London, the area we're in has its own ethos. I had one guy tell me I needed to get myself a running suit, a few large gold chains, and a Ford Escort with ground effects that I could drive around in while thumping to the base from my overly large sound system and hanging my elbow out the window. Hmm...
Here are a few thoughts rummaging in my head:
What is the church? - I know, it's vague. But one thing I'm learning about LCM is that it's very self-consciously NOT the local church. The mission seem to have a strong definition of what the church is, but I'm not sure how things I've been thinking in the past fit in with that.
How does handing out newspapers door-to-door bless the community, and how can I get excited about it?
How do I get on board w/ LCM's vision w/o coopting it for myself? Does "getting on board" mean just doing everything I'm asked to do? Somehow I don't think so...but maybe.
your thoughts?

Birthday Update

Well, I had a great plan for how the day was going to go. But, as often happens when living outside your home culture, things don't go according to plan. It took us much longer than expected to get to Ikea. The girls were miserable traveling, and we had only 45 mins before the store closed by the time we got there. When we got home (a full 5 hours after starting our journey), we couldn't get the video chat to work with my parents. Still got to talk to them a little, but it was frustrating. I did find a good Swedish cheese at Ikea and remembered I had a little wine left over from a few nights ago...but I was really too tired to enjoy them properly.
Such is life in another country.