Little change, big change and more change...sometimes Cindi and I feel confused as things change. We have returned home and feel more disconnected from here than we did while we were away! ( I know - classic right) I must admit it is strange to come home. Just before we left I was part of a team of 4 pastors at a Guelph church but today...only one of those pastors is still there...and life goes on.
Each of us has a great job and a new adventure to look forward to. Cindi has completed her first Principal Course. We have a lovely house in Elora we are renting for the year. We hope to share our table many times with many people there.
Right now we are sitting in suite 433 at the Crane in Barbados on the south east coast of this beautiful little island. Our maids name is Orlean and she is a riot. We have met a young Christian couple from Florida on their honeymoon and a Mom and son (non-christians) from England. Both meetings have been real and enjoyable - sharing stories of our lives together. This is our passion! - to connect with people.
I want to share something I just read. Perhaps you have some thoughts on it.
The Call to live incarnationally...excerpts from Michael Frost's Book
following Jesus example would include #1- an active sharing of life, participating in the fears, frustrations, and afflictions of our host community. Our prayer should be Lord let your mind be in me, for no witness is capable of incarnationality without the mind of Christ...#2- an employment of the language and thought forms of those with whom we seek to share Jesus. After all, He used common speech and story: salt, light, fruit, birds and the like. He seldom used theological or religious jargon or technical terms...#3- a preparedness to go to the people, not expecting them to come to us. As Jesus came from the heavens to us, we enter into the tribal realities of human society...#4- a confidence that the gospel can be communicated by ordinary means, through acts of servant hood, loving relationships, good deeds; in this way the exile (witness) becomes an extension of the incarnation in our time and deeds thus create words.
I've noticed that many people can be critical of new things. I have read critiques of books and movies by Christians that are quite hateful and rough. Hard to love when your bashing someone. I am afraid that there might be a whole world of professional Christians out there who live primarily in the church or the Christian academy, and who determine what is the true and so called proper terminology or the correct Biblical procedure for mission, but who never seem to embody the ideas they describe. On the other hand, there are theologically untrained people who are reading the Bible and intuiting new ways to create proximity with not-yet-Christians. These exiles (witnesses) don't feel appreciated or understood by the conventional church. They have been marginalized by their other Christian friends who thought their ideas and lifestyles too radical or too unsafe to accommodate. (Man can I ever relate to that) But they are onto something and in their unorthodox practice reside the seeds of the survival of the Christian movement.
Radically interesting statements. A definition of the new emerging church..found sometimes in basements, or movie theatres, coffee shops or parks - highly unstructured but creatively relational and truly pointed at Jesus and not "church"
It certainly has me scratching my head and itching for new expressions.
Blessings to you all.
1Peter 2:21 "To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in His steps."
and only a fool would suggest that the steps of Christ are not ANYTHING BUT radical, risky, nonreligious yet focused on the Father, impossible yet strangely desirable, out there and not inside comfortable buildings and of course all about radical love - so what are we waiting for???????????????????? LET'S ENGAGE!
Pete
