C'ville

Continuing the theme of "where I've been" during the silence:
This past weekend, Somer and I were in Charlottesville, VA with the rest of the World Harvest Emerging Generations team.
Friday and Saturday we went to a conference to hear Pete Greig founder of 24-7 Prayer.
A couple things for us as a team came out of the conference:
First, the challenge to make prayer central (not just a component, not just an after-thought like we're prone to) to a church planting work in London. Second, the reality that you don't have to be a leader in the church to have a powerful ministry. Another way to say that: God does extraordinary and powerful things through people who are not gifted/called to lead his church. We want to see God unleashing his power in and through young people in London - leaders or not. Sure, we want to see the next generation trained for leadership in his church, and that's important; but leadership is not to be equated with being a channel for God's power.
Aside from the conference, we had a great time together as a team. We prayed together (a lot), talked about our passions, our plans for the months before returning to London, went bowling, played Settlers of Catan (see photo) and somehow I got the name Stinking Bishop. I'm debating whether or not to rename this blog under that title.

Next to me and Somer are John and Kathy Hall, Pat and Jen Wallin, and Rebecca Williams. That's our team. We love you guys!

Utah

Appologies to those who have come to expect more frequent updates...I've been in and out of town a lot recently. Here's part of the reason why:

I went snowboarding/skiing with my two brothers in the Wasatch mountains in Utah. First time the three of us had done a trip like that together. We had a great time. I enjoyed getting to know my brothers better - when you're the oldest sibling, you kind of forget that when you move away from home, the rest of your family continues to grow and change. So even though I "know" my brothers, they've changed a lot since I left home. And even though we've seen each other loads in the past 6 years, this was the first time it was just us. So thanks guys. Thanks for setting this trip up, thanks for inviting me, and most of all, thanks for letting your older brother share life with you.
Of course, it didn't hurt that we were able to fly down the mountain (sometimes in untouched powder) and soak in the hot tubs while snow flurries fell on us.
I tried snowboarding - even took a lesson the first day. But two days of it was all this aging body (yes, I turned 27 yesterday) could take. But it was lots of fun, and I'll probably try it again. That first picture in the series is me. In the one of the three of us behind our goggles, I'm closest, and I think Mark is in the middle with Andrew at the far end.
The beauty of the place is amazing. One day I looked straight up and lost myself in a sky that was so smooth and consistent it looked almost solid. At times the contrast between sky and mountain was so sharp that there was no sense of depth - it looked like a flat painting, with the top-half Cobalt blue and the bottom-half pure white.

Beautiful Quote

In an e-mail to me, in the context of making plans that aren't set in stone:

"Remember: the Holy Spirit is a wild goose!"

Diversity in Community

I spoke at Sunday School at New Life last week on Diversity in Community. It was an extremely challenging topic, but one that I really enjoyed. I'll give you a few random thoughts, in no particular order of importance...mostly because that's about all I did with the class - it was more a facilitated discussion than a lecture.
I had us interact with a couple articles that analyzed the riots in Paris this past November. This article compares the model for diversity in France with the model in India; while this one argues that no model of diversity will work unless there is a sense of purpose within society. This second article especially intrigued me, because it connected with something else I was thinking - namely, that the church is united in its missional calling to be about God's purpose of reconciling the world to himself.
I had us look at Genesis 11, the story of the tower of Babel. Here, linguistic diversity is actually a blessing that enables humans to get back to their original purpose - to be fruitful, multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it. At the begining of the story, humans had all congregated in one place and didn't want to be scattered over the whole earth. We then looked at Genesis 12, where God tells Abram he is going to bless him, and that through him all nations on earth will be blessed. We can't talk about diversity with the local church without connecting it to God's purposes to bless all nations. We also looked at a few others - Genesis 7, Acts 6, and one of my favorites - Joshua 9, the story of how the Gibeonites brought diversity to Israel by basically stealing their way into the community.
In all of this, the overriding assumption is that it's the Holy Spirit that forms the church into a community - he is the one that unites us under one Lord, giving us His mission and making us His body. For those of you who are interested, that fits under the scheme of Kingdom-->Mission-->Church

Home...for a while

We've arrived at our new home. Our friends Jim and Steph have opened up their top floor to us again, and after a week of staying with family in Baltimore, we are here in Philly. The girls are a bit confused by all the moving around...they have said several times "Daddy, I want to go home." And this while we're standing in their new room!
This next week I'll be working on putting together a presentation for supporters about this past year, and also about our future plans, so maybe as I'm doing that I'll post a couple thoughts along those lines - looking back and looking forward.

Oh yeah, and Happy New Year!! For my East Coast friends, we've got about four hours to go.

Back in the USA

We arrived in Baltimore yesterday to a warm welcome from all four of our parents and all three siblings (plus one girlfriend). Our first meal in the States? Chinese food from China Legend, the place that catered for our wedding. Today we visited my brother who works at Starbucks and did some food shopping. Somer's making Spicy Mince Lamb for dinner - check her blog soon for full details. I've been walking around all day in a bit of a daze - it feels a little more than the tiredness associated with jet lag. I just feel out of sorts. More on this later, if I can sort it out.

Leaving London

Watching Ice Age, our favorite Family Movie Night movie. It's almost over...just enough time to give a quick update on our last week in London. We've said good-bye to all our friends. Had a nice party at Mums & Tots on Friday, and saw some of our friends that we hadn't seen for a few weeks, which was really good. The kids at Ley Street's youth club were really nice on Thursday, they gave me some chocolates, a Christmas ornament, and a few good-bye cards. We took a break from packing this afternoon to swing by the local mall, where several churches joined together to do singing and give away free hot chocolate and soup to cold shoppers.
As part of our family preparation for leaving, we've been telling each other stories from our year over dinner this past week. I would suggest a topic like "What did you like about London" or "What don't you like about London" or "Who are some of the people you met in London", and then let the stories flow. The girls had lots of fun with it, and I think it was good for our family's collective memory. I'll try to blog some of those stories over the Christmas holiday, if I can find some time. But until then, it's "Goodbye from London" (unless I can find a spare minute to blog at Heathrow!)

Emerging Discouraging Today

Today was the carol service at Bethel. It was a good service, and contained many of the elements that I find very attractive in the emerging church movement. But let me start at the beginning of my Emerging Discouraging Today

We woke up (some of us later than others...ahem) and got ready to go to church. We have to leave about 45 minutes before church starts in order to get there with time to chill with people before the service. But today, the car wouldn't start. It was too cold, and the battery had died overnight.
None of our neighbors had jumper cables.
After checking askmen.com I decided to try to push-start the car. Well, that was a total disaster, and after about 10 minutes and four runs up and down the street, my legs were shaking and my lungs burning. I felt faint and sick for the next half hour, and while laying down with a cold cloth on my head I fell asleep. I woke up to find the sky clouded with smoke (see previous post). So we didn't get to church, and I was very discouraged, both because I couldn't get the car started, and also because I had really been looking forward to church this morning.
Not to worry...we had the carol service at Bethel to look forward to. At that didn't disappoint...sort of. Here are some of the elements I really liked about it. I'll say up front that these are elements that connect to themes within the emerging church, even though Bethel itself is neither a church nor emerging.
1. A reappreciation of Scripture as story - specifically Jesus' story: We basically read the Christmas story, weaving the different gospel accounts together into one. There were different readers for the different speakers in the story, but nobody acted anything out...it was just good story-telling.
2. Yes, I'll admit we had the room lit with candles...if you are in an emerging church, you know this is a very "non-emerging" thing to do; if you aren't in an emerging church, you think this is the definition of emerging church...but hey, it's Christmas, and you just gotta have candles.
3. We saw the entire evening as celebration. So we gave out drinks as people came in. We had gifts at the door for each person as they left - and not cheesy gifts either. Somer made and hand-wrapped a packet of Peppermint Barkfor each person. We wove a few songs into the mix of the story, because every good party needs some singing. And then, of course, lots of food at the end.
4. A missional focus - we had invited all of our friends who were not church-goers to come along, and had set aside a few reading parts for a couple of the younger Hub guys. Somer's friends from moms & tots were coming, as were a number of our friends from the estate. And here, I think, is where we stopped emerging and started looking a lot more traditional, and in the end why my day was an emerging discouraging day. Because none of the people we had invited came. There were a fair number of people at the service, but they were all Christians, all church "insiders".
There was only one person there who I think was not a Christian - a woman from a different faith.
Maybe that's because the service wasn't really as "missional" as we thought it was. Maybe the whole idea of "missional service" is an oxymoron.
What are your thoughts?

Oil Depot Explosion

There was an explosion early this morning at a fuel depot outside of London. The BBC has some haunting pictures, as well as full coverage. By mid-afternoon the smoke had spread to Ilford, where we live. The sky was not completely black, but the sun was obscured. It felt like any other cloudy day...in fact, I didn't even know it was smoke until our friends told us what had happened.

Carol Service

Sunday evening Bethel is hosting a carol service. We decided to make it a little less "traditional" and a little more welcoming. We'll be serving drinks as people come in (after all, what kind of host makes her guests wait for 45 minutes before offering them refreshment?) Instead of singing a bunch of songs that most people who haven't stepped into a church don't know, we'll only be singing 3 carols, one of which will be led by the children from our moms and tots group (if any of them will actually sing in front of people). The focus of the service will be telling the story of Jesus' birth. To do that, each member of staff has been assigned a different character - but it's not like a play, it's more a dramatic reading. At key points, some of the words spoken by the characters will be displayed on the overhead projector (yes, it'll even be multimedia!!) Of course we will finish the evening with food provided by Somer. We are also putting together small gifts to give each person who comes.

John H

Congratulations, John, Gotta Serve Somebody was the Dylan song I played at The Hub on Tuesday. It went over fairly well. One guy thought it was Bob Marley!

Bob Dylan and the First Commandment

The Hub starts in ten minutes. Tonight the talk is on the first commandment. So I'm playing a Bob Dylan song for the guys, and then saying a few words. First person to guess which song I'm playing will get a prize...I'll title the next post in honor of you. Post a comment with your guess.

Meeting Witches

Well, not so much witches, but a witch.
Met her while going door to door today in Ilford.
She didn't want our literature - said she was a Pagan. Being the inquisitive guy that I am, I asked her what "Pagan" meant. She went on to explain that she believes everything around us is alive. She celebrates the cycles of nature, believes in a duality (god and goddess), and has a specific goddess that is "hers". She belongs to a coven of witches with whom she celebrates nature and worships her goddess, and she's even a chaplain for Pagans in prison.
I asked her about Harry Potter - she laughed and said it had nothing to do with her reality - just a pure fantasy.
She said the church has often misunderstood Pagans and accused them of worshipping Satan; but she said she doesn't worship Satan, and doesn't even believe he exists. She said she did think that Jesus existed, and the was a good man, but not the son of God. She also mentioned how she doesn't like "Born again" Christians because they can't tolerate anyone who disagrees with them. I told her that I believed that Jesus said he was the only way to God, and that I believed he was telling the truth. I asked her if she thought it was possible for me to believe that and still respect and value people like her. She said 'Yes'.
Very interesting. Wasn't sure where to go with it all...it was a little freaky because she didn't open the door more than a crack during the whole conversation, so all I could see of her was one eye (talk about playing into the bad stereotypes of witches).
I asked her if I could pray for her before we left and ask God to bless her. She said "Sure...well...you're not going to pray that my soul gets converted, are you?" I said "No, I'll simply ask God to bless you." And I did. As I recall, that's what the founder of World Harvest used to do when he'd meet people in their shops...pray God's blessing on them.
When I was finished, she said "And may my goddess bless you." Hmm...
Anyway, does anyone have any thoughts about this? Just kind of wondering if I did the right thing...I can be really nice to people, play away from all the negative stereotypes of Christians being people who hate everyone who doesn't agree with them. But in the end, has my interaction with this woman honored Jesus?

Generous Orthodoxy

Catching up on a few things, including posts I've promised to write but haven't gotten around to yet. For Daniel and others who have asked, here is my take on Brian McLaren's A Generous Orthodoxy.
I find myself in strong agreement with the notion of a generous orthodoxy that McLaren advocates. A theology that is well-researched, well-thought, and strongly held. But also a theology that is aware of its own short-comings, that listens to those who think differently (and not simply for the sake of shooting them down when they're finished talking), and that is willing to be taught by Word and Spirit. Generous Orthodoxy seeks to find a different way from the old Liberal/Evangelical divide, a divide that strangely enough is formed on mutually agreed notions of "certainly and knowledge" (see pg. 24). Whatever you think of the actual beliefs McLaren writes about, I love the way he holds his beliefs, and hope that, in this sense, I will also uphold a generous orthodoxy.
Now, in terms of what he actually believes...
The chapter "Jesus: Savior of What?" ends with me still wondering what Jesus is the savior of. I totally agree that the gospel Evangelicals preach is too introspective, too self-focused, sometimes too "salvation from hell" focused. McLaren says Jesus saves the world by exposing evil, pronouncing forgiveness, and teaching how to do good. But there just doesn't seem to be much power there, in my opinion. I find the (slightly) more traditional approach of Union with Christ to be a much more powerful and life-giving way for understanding Jesus as savior. But then again, the chapter has forced me to think carefully about what I believe, and I guess that's McLaren's point.
To be honest, I could point to a number of things I found unclear or less than appealing in the book, but in the end I think it did its job in that I was forced to think about hard questions in new ways. So it's definitely worth a read.
One final thing I really liked was the part about why he is an Anglican. He said that there is an incredible diversity within the Anglican communion in terms of theological views, but the communion is not held together by everyone believing the same thing. McLaren says its the Liturgy, the beauty/mystery of the Liturgy, that holds Anglicans together. Even as they interpret that liturgy differently, there is unity within the communion because they hold it in common.
Anyway, those are my two cents and thirty minutes worth on McLaren

Family Movie Night

In the middle ofFinding Nemo with the girls. Just took the second round of pizzas out of the oven...waiting to eat my 1 piece, after spilling my other piece all over the top of the oven, and making things worse by trying to rapidly remove it (a la the fivev-second rule) and thus smearing the cheese and sauce everywhere. It's more like 3/4 Family Movie Night because Somer's not around. She's off having High Tea at some fancy hotel downtown in honor of our friend Mary Ellen's first baby in the UK (they have three others, all born stateside). The kiddos are ready for dessert...gotta go.

Wisdom

So, what does it look like to preach the gospel to teenagers who could care less?
I've been wrestling with that for a while. At the Thursday night youth club that I help run, we have a slot in the evening for a "talk". It's supposed to be an evangelistic talk of sorts. But to be honest, I just get kinda depressed every time I have to think about it, because the kids rarely listen...usually they're just laughing or texting or taking pictures of each other with their mobile phones.
So this past Thursday I was going to have them listen to a Bob Dylan song instead, and talk about its implications. But I didn't burn the CD properly, so it wouldn't play. Having to come up with something on the fly, I came back to a theme that's been bouncing around on the edges of my life for the past couple of years: Wisdom.
Wisdom is all about how to live life in the world that God has made. The cool thing is that wisdom applies to everyone, even if they don't want to have anything to do with God, because everyone lives in the world God has made. So I picked out four proverbs, including my favorite: The one who answers before listening is a fool and a shameful person (Prov 18:13). It was really funny because there was a group of boys that were goofing off and not listening, and one of the other girls said "Oh, so this proverb applies to those guys". Brilliant!
We also looked at a proverb that talked about parents being the pride of their children, and one about not taking advantage of the poor.
Was this preaching the gospel to the youth club? Hmm...don't know. I do think that Jesus' good-news about the kingdom of God starts with the assumption that there is a King, and that his world needs setting right. And maybe that's where it starts for this group...seeing that the world they inhabit is supposed to work a certain way, but that "way of wisdom" has been broken. Will they get that out of one lesson? Maybe - there was at least one girl who said "I can see that children should take pride in their parents, but it doesn't usually happen that way."

Deputation

Speaking at a church tomorrow for "Deputation". LCM have a great system, in that none of their missionaries have to raise their own personal support. Instead, churches and individuals give to the mission as a whole, and then each missionary is assigned a couple weeks worth of deputation visits to supporters each year. So tomorrow I'm going with Julian to talk about our work at Bethel. I'm supposed to be pulling a short scripture message together...but I have no ideas at this point, and it's past midnight...

Update: Deputation went really well. I ended up just reading from Proverbs 18:13 and telling how that verse had been kind of a theme for us. I talked about what I have learned/valued about LCM this year: Their commitment to patient, long-term engagement with a community; Their engagement with the entire community, not just a select portion; and the way they uphold and promote the unity of the church of Jesus.

New Books

Just a quick update on the books I've added to my "reading list". White Teeth was recommended as a good book for understanding life in London. I'm a little over half-way through, and it's a great read. Very interesting to read it at the end of our first year here.
Exclusion and Embrace is a bit of a challenge. I'm reading it for the Emergent Theological Conversation at Yale that I'm attending in February. So far it's good, but ocassionaly I have a hard time following Volf's line of argument. I do love his focus on the centrality of the Trinity and the self-giving love of God as expressed in the cross. May do some more discussion here at a later date.
The Character of Theology is a good book, though the most academic of the three. For me, that means it's slow-going. But it's worth it. Franke provides a good reformed perspective for doing theology from within the emerging culture.

Learning the Faith

This past week we took a bunch of the people from our Wednesday group at Bethel to a hotel/retreat centre in Kent. We were by far the youngest people in the group...all but one were over 70. Somer and I were the drivers (me in a 15-seater borrowed from the Ford factory in Dagenham, and Somer in our car with one woman who couldn't climb the step into the bus). We had a good time and came back exhausted from all the driving.
Probably the best part for me was seeing our girls take part in the holiday. The older crowd took the girls on as surrogate grandchildren, buying them balloons, candy, and coloring books. The girls, in turn, took to walking around the tables at meals and greeting each person in turn. The reason this scenario was so appealing to me is that Somer and I want to teach our faith to our children by having them participate in the practice of our faith right from the start. We've actually seen this "learning through participation" taking place all through our year here, and this week just captured it beautifully.

Diwali

Today is Diwali the Hindu festival of lights. There are fireworks going off everywhere around us. They've been going for at least the past hour. I walked out into our back garden and didn't know which direction to turn to watch...I kept spinning around to catch the bright flashes in the sky. Really puts Americans' celebrations of 4th of July to shame in terms of sheer volume. In fact, fireworks have been going off for the past four days...with each day getting more and more intense. Our neighbors were out on Sunday in their back garden, so we got a bit of a private fireworks display (though it scared the girls a bit).
This is one of the things I love about London. The diversity of the city is unbelievable. In addition to Diwali, on either Friday or Saturday the Muslim celebration of Ramadan will end with the Eid ul-Fitr. Also on Saturday is Guy Fawkes Night, which commemorates the failed attempt by several Catholic Englishmen to assassinate the king and the entire Parliament by blowing up the houses of Parliament while everyone was inside. Apparently this is also celebrated with fireworks displays and bonfires, along with burning effigies of Fawkes.