endirect

Spiritual practices in the community

One of my colleagues here in Grenoble, Howard Diehl, returned from the States recently and started talking about the changes going on at Willow Creek. He has a copy of the book the REVEAL group has put out. Very interesting stuff.

Heidi, over at Redemption Junkie, does a nice job of summing up what's going on here.

All this makes a lot of sense to me. We had a very nice melt down at our local church here in France. It started in June of 2006 and burned on through March of 2007. Many are still hurting.

As I thought long and hard about what led to all of this, I came to the conclusion that one of the elements that contributed to the crisis was the lack of spiritual transformation in the lives of the members of our community.

Spiritual transformation does not happen because I attend the right meetings or am involved in the right programs. It happens when I take the time to allow God's Spirit to accomplish his work in my life.

Run, fall, get up, run some more...

For nearly 7 years we've been a part of the fellowship that meets in this building. For just over a year now we've added an English speaking church to the mix. A year ago the French church was going through a very nice crisis...

Today, things are looking up. The International Church is healthy and vibrant, the French church is getting better. So as I sit at my thinking place, I'm thinking about church life. I think we've learned a few things during our time serving here, and I think the most important thing is when a church comes to the point of asking "Who are we?" and "What should we be doing?" It seemed like a simple thing to do but it wasn't.

Everyone knows what they want the church to be, we just can't agree on it. So to force the group to say what they want and be confronted with maybe, just maybe changing their way of thinking, well that's a lot to ask. So through the crises, yes there was more than one, we got to the point where we could ask the right questions.

It just took us 6 years and that meant lots of falling down, getting up and trying again...

Learn another language

I got an email from Stephen Shields that got me thinking about the emerging church in the States...

I use to try and act like a someone who could say something about all that but I realized quickly that I was just a little fish in the big ocean of the blogosphere and that there were others much more capable than I.

Still I think about it all because in my journey I've got to meet and befriend some of the well known voices.

When I hear about the stuff that is said about the emerging church I cringe. Sitting here in Grenoble I'm realizing more and more that the way the whole thing has developed in the US and A is so linked to that culture.

So here's one idea that would change the tone. The two sides should learn another language, Hungarian for example, and talk about their differences in that language. Here are the benefits.

1. Learning another language and hard one at that is a humbling experience. Humility is a good thing.
2. Working in a second language means simplifying what you say.
3. You loose your rhetorical tricks in a second language.

Obviously this won't happen and if it did I'd be sorry for the Hungarians. They really don't need all that foolishness in their language.

Yesterday I was helping out with an exposition on the evangelical church in France that the local pastors fellowship organized. The exposition is housed in an information center run by the Catholic Church. It was great sitting and chatting with sisters in Christ focusing on Him and not on our differences.

May God have mercy on us.

Taming lions, no thank you...

So we rolling into our big week-end for the CEP. A year ago all hell was breaking loose... Crisis and criticism were rampant. Peace came with the Spring of this year. And now we are reaching for something new. Unity in purpose, getting behind a project, getting folks to really believe that they have something to say about what's going on in our church, that's what we are trying to do.

It isn't easy.

My experience of this kind of stuff is limited and I'm guessing nothing new is happening here. Just I'm trying to figure it our for us...

I'm wondering if comparing what I'm trying to do with the job of a lion tamer. At first blush, it sure feels that way. Wild beasts who need to be tamed and brought into line. Ready to pounce and devour when my back is turned. Get the whip out, make sure they know who's boss...

OK, it is a really bad comparison. But if I'm not going to be an authoritative jerk then how in the world do we come together and get behind what God is doing in our world?

God's Spirit has got to show up in a big way and not in a supernatural hocus-pocus way. No, we need to see him at work through the means of grace that are at our disposal. This week-end we want to come together and hear God speak to us as a body, everyone has their place.

It's just a times I feel like they see themselves as lions who need to be tamed. Which means we as leaders have probably acted like that in the past.

God have mercy on us...

My thinking place and watching our orchid grow...

So I'm in our living room sitting on our green couch. If I was an uber-blogger I'd throw in a few pics but alas I'm not and our green couch will have to live in your imagination...

When I'm at home this is my spot. Not much unlike my Dad sitting on the couch when he got home from work either reading the newspaper or watching the TV. In my case I'm sitting with my mac on my lap...

What catches my eye as I survey my world is our orchid plant. My parents bought it for us when they came for a visit a couple of years ago. It will soon be be in full bloom. We weren't certain if we'd keep it going when it arrived. A quick search on the internet gave us a few clues for its care. It arrived in bloom and we then followed the instruction and cut it back and waited. 8 months later it was blooming again. That lasted a few months. Another pruning and 8 more months of waiting and here it comes again.

The local church is a lot more complex than an orchid. At the same time finding new ways to stimulate growth are always just a few clicks away. The question then comes, "Is this the right thing for here and now?" You don't care for an orchid like you care for an hibiscus. The week-end we are doing some "cultivating" type of work at the CEP. One plants, the other waters and God gives the growth. I'm praying that God will bless our efforts.

Glory's weight/wait

Good friend and fellow traveler, Heidi, pointed me towards C.S. Lewis' talk, "The Weight of Glory". Well worth the read.

The conclusion is well know, "Next to the Blessed Sacrament  itself, your neighbour is the holiest object  presented to your senses."

I found  reading the whole sermon produced a sense of déjà vu. As if what I was living now had already been spoken about. Lewis preached the sermon in 1942.

My surprise of yesterday echoes something I long for, God's smile. That will be our glory.

Thanks Heidi.

Beautiful Day

Yesterday wasn't much of one...

There are some Sundays when it all seems like a lot of work. Conversation followed conversation and I wondered if anything I had said had ever made sense to anyone. Good thing I have such a great wife and family...

So today is a new day and God lined up a series of providential encounters to show me that it is OK.

I walk out of the our church's building to go to the store. It's about a 10 minute walk. I get there and find the things I needed. I walk out and come across a friend. We chat. I walk on. I come across another friend. We chat. Then I walk on and I come across another person with whom I wanted to have a conversation. We talk and as I walk on a friend drives by in his car...

It's a beautiful day.

U2 - Beautiful Day

The heart is a bloom
Shoots up through the stony ground
There's no room
No space to rent in this town

You're out of luck
And the reason that you had to care
The traffic is stuck
And you're not moving anywhere

You thought you'd found a friend
To take you out of this place
Someone you could lend a hand
In return for grace

It's a beautiful day
Sky falls, you feel like
It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away

You're on the road
But you've got no destination
You're in the mud
In the maze of her imagination

You love this town
Even if that doesn't ring true
You've been all over
And it's been all over you

It's a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
It's a beautiful day

Touch me
Take me to that other place
Teach me
I know I'm not a hopeless case

See the world in green and blue
See China right in front of you
See the canyons broken by cloud
See the tuna fleets clearing the sea out
See the Bedouin fires at night
See the oil fields at first light
And see the bird with a leaf in her mouth
After the flood all the colors came out

It was a beautiful day
Don't let it get away
Beautiful day

Touch me
Take me to that other place
Reach me
I know I'm not a hopeless case

What you don't have you don't need it now
What you don't know you can feel it somehow
What you don't have you don't need it now
Don't need it now
Was a beautiful day

A world run amok...

Yesterday I was looking at washingtonpost.com and this article caught my eye, The Shadow of Debt. Becoming an observer of the exchange rate market is one the strange things that happens to an expat who lives in Europe and paid in US dollars. And because a couple of years back we got caught in a storm that was a combination of a falling dollar and high living expenses we found ourselves deeply in debt. So I followed the link...

Here's the first paragraph...

Let me tell you about a place called Slavic Village and the death of a girl named Cookie Thomas. You've never heard this story before -- talk of housing markets and hedge funds, interest rates and the Federal Reserve  has drowned it out.

And with that the author takes you on a journey into what has happened across America. Loans offered to people who weren't qualified. Houses built then abandoned because of foreclosures. Neighborhoods becoming the playground of criminals because because people who need to hide look for empty houses.
And in all of this you see the ugly side of capitalism when it loses its moral bearings.

Because of what we lived through I understand the dynamics of falling into debt. I know what its like to grab at easy money and hope that somehow tomorrow will be better. I know what it feels like to look at loan payments and think there is no way I will ever be able to pay them. And in all of this I know that I'm responsible for my choices. But there is more to this than just making bad choices.

When I read through the article I saw once again how dishonest people take advantage of naive people. 20 years ago I would have observed that and credited it to man's sinful nature and a godless world that would be washed away when Jesus returns.

I can no longer think like that. It was wrong then and those who think like that now are wrong. Jesus came to bring good news to the poor. Yes, we are all poor spiritually but it is also for the poor materially.

Who will defend that cause of those in  Slavic Village? The Church has something to say about systemic evil. Amoral capitalism is evil. Will we change everything? No. But we will not stand silent.

In my corner of the world I need to see the injustices and be willing to act out...