June 2006

As the final week of my 6 month ministry term drew nigh my 11th hour Jesus answered the praying and seeking of Sherry and I.  The leadership here at Riverwood has given me a new one year term to continue this amazing ministry to amazing people alongside amazing staff!

So much of what we’ve done has been experimental, beta-mode foundation building so I’m thrilled to be able to build on that in the coming year… take it all to the next level and witness more of the dreams and visions come to pass.  I’m thrilled to have a chance to continue and grow our “Cafe of the Dead” events.

I’m thrilled with the possibilty (emphasis on possibilty) of developing our new venue into a full-fledged community outreach cafe and… dare I say… Vox hot spot.

I don’t have high expectations of this coming year…. all I want is to do the impossible at every turn, have a relationship with God so intimate that it incapacitates me, bring community to the lonely, reality to the blind, distress to the comfortable, Jesus to the hurting, pull the kingdom of darkness out of this community by it’s roots, change the world and save the universe.  For starters.

Rooooaaaar!

nooc

 
p.s. Should clarify this is a faith venture not a paid position. So we’ll be raising support for this coming year of ministry as Urban Missionaries. Please pray! …and let me know if you want to contribute.

A gadget

Every once in awhile something comes along that is so brilliant you can’t believe it hasn’t been done before. Behold the faucet that indicates the temperature of the water using LCD lights. Very sexy.

 

 

A blog

Some of the churches that are involved in Love Winnipeg are dipping their toes into the blogosphere and posting their experiences on the Love Winnipeg blog. I especially like the little graphic my pastor put up to encourage another pastor to try out blogging…. and how Love Winnipeg showed up in Nepal.

 

 

Why I’m reading ‘Mega Shift’…

I have a philosophy in reading where I will throw books into my reading mix that I know in advance are from the fringes of what I might consider or agree with. I do this to keep myself balanced… or unbalanced… and keep myself exposed to perspectives and views outside the range of my current views or favourite authors so as to avoid tunnel vision. I recommend this practice… if you’re able to read with an open mind.

 

 

‘Mega Shift’ is from a very charismatic viewpoint. It’s a great read. The author is quite humourous and self-deprecating alongside equal doses of the typical charismatic language and bravado. Mega Shift essentially examines the explosive growth of Christians and churches in non-western countries and usually through charismatic or pentecostal minstries… and the corresponding increase in occurances of documented miracles… particularly resurrections from the dead. Whatever negative emotional reaction you had to that last sentence… there must have been at least a little sense of intrigue buried somewhere in there.

One gem:

“…at the rate we’re growing now, to be comically precise, there would be more christians than people by the autumn of 2032.”

Apart from reading it to expand my horizon, it’s estimated that by 2010, the ratio of non-western evangelicals to western evangelicals will be 7 to 1. So I read both with curiosity as well as with a realization that it might perhaps be helpful (and maybe even non-optional) to find out how the most predominant form of doing church on the planet will look like. We can only insulate ourselves for so long, fellow westerners. There’s a whole non-western church out there that we don’t usually hear about…

where a 30-year-old peasant farmer in China with a cell phone oversees 30,000 full-time church planters …

where christians in Cambodia grew from 200 to 400,000 in 14 years…

where 2 sisters in China who became believers were embarrassed and ashamed to admit they only started 29 churches in 2 years - the largest of which has 5,000 members…

so you might want to read up on what’s coming down the pike…like it or not.

Has anybody else read this? What did you think?

nooc

Yesterday was June 1st. That was a bit of a wake up for me.

You see my 6 month term as Urban Missionary ends June 30th. I haven’t been giving that little fact any headspace because I’ve been so immersed in the ministry…. after all at least it’s not June yet.

But now it’s June.

And the headspace has carved itself out in a corner of my mind. So the praying and pondering and seeking begins afresh. The adventure renews. Faith and fear, trust and terror, assurance and uncertainty get reaquainted. Ideally I want to find a way to continue the ministry I’m currently doing…we’ve come far and accomplished much and laid so much groundwork that I want to build upon…. but I know I have to hold it loosely.

All I know for sure is that I can’t go back to ordinary… I can’t go back to mediocrity. I am still a happy casualty of the influence of this mystic community.

That doesn’t mean I won’t consider a regular job… but it would have to be strategic… temporary… a means to an end.

So Lord… what shall we do next?

nooc

If you have even a passing interest (as I do) in observing the sociology of our culture through the futurist glasses of the mystic…. you have to be fascinated with the Brookers phenomenon… especially from the perspective of the implications or opportunities (if any) of this (or any) cultural phenomenon for the church.

 

 

For the uninitiated, Brookers is the screen name of a young girl who has raised a cult following (in the cultural not religious sense) by doing something she loves to do… submit quirky videos of herself on YouTube. Sure she’s been trashed but she’s continued despite the critics because… she just loves to do it. And now she has a contract in hand from MTV2 and Carson Daly Productions.

See her “thank you to her fans” video here: Everything Changes

Her raw emotions when she gives tribute to her father… just being real and being herself… is part of what made her so popular.

Are there lessons here for us? In understanding what this culture values? In the use of technology? In perceiving shifts in the definition of pop culture? In being yourself?  In the explosion of YouTube in general?

What do you think?

nooc