Christian Associates Staff Conference

Thanks to a generous sponsorship from a Sunday School class who is close to our heart (!), Toni and I are able to attend the Staff Conference of Christian Associates this August, in Amsterdam, Holland. We start to realize that between rapid trips home to see friends, family, and church family, and the pace at which we work here, we rarely stop for deeply needed spiritual refreshment.

The staff conference is designed as a training time, a renewing time, and networking time. There we will be with 300 US and European church-planters whose ministry contexts are similar to ours, and whose vision and approach to ministry is similar as well.

Alan Hirsch, co-author of The Shaping of Things to Come will be the guest speaker as we consider new frameworks for conceiving of the church in this new century (millenium?). Breakaway sessions will afford us the time to network with church-planters from Brazil, and great times of prayer, worship, and reflection promise to be a spa for the soul.

We can’t wait to get there.

Oh yeah, and since we are ALREADY going to be there, Toni and I just might take in a few sights as well!

The Shaping of Things to Come

Okay, so I’ve read like 6 pages of this book, but I am totally pleased with it so far. It is iconoclastic, intellectually strong, appealing, written by a couple of energized Australians, and speaks to the next incarnation of the Christian Church worldwide. But that’s what they say ALL these books do.

THIS one, however, has some great theological venn diagrams. But that is not what get’s me most.

What gets me most about it is that I think I am going to spread my wings and fly after I read it… I am pretty scared about some of the conclusions that it might be suggesting. What might it mean vocationally? What might it imply for the current way my team is working? What if we are led to do something radically different then we are currently doing?

You can’t see it now, but deep on the inside my fingernails are between my teeth and I am shivering.

So hurry. Run out and buy a copy of this and see what happens!

It’s the Kids that Matter Most

We’ve long since theoretically known the importance of children’s ministry, but yesterday it became glaringly obvious. Roberto and mariana came over for lunch yesterday. It was great. Their two daughters have already been at several Christ Church events and they get on really well with Alejandra. I fired up the fireplace and grilled burgers over the hot coals on a little portable rack made for just such purposes.

We met Roberto and Mariana (sort of like their real names) in December when I was playing Santa Claus at a Christmas function at church. The have just moved back to Uruguay after a bunch of time in the states, where she has lived since she was 16 and where he went to do his Ph.D. In some type of research science that has something to do with engineering and something to do with fluid dynamics and weather. His parents call him their son whose “head is in the clouds.”

They came back to Uruguay in 2002, at the worst moment of the financial crisis, and bought a place just a couple of miles from our house. They heard about our Christmas party through the friend of a friend, and were delighted to be able to conserve a bit of the “international side” of themselves by taking part in a multi-cultural, English language event in a church community. Last December, when they were leaving the Christmas event, they asked me, “Are there any Catholics at Christ Church?” “Oh yeah,” I told them, “we’ve got Christians and non-Christians of all kinds.” They let me know that they were more or less “disgruntled Catholics” looking for a living expression of Christian faith that had an international edge.

I got so excited as I saw this 30-something Uruguayan couple, with kids, heading off at the end of the event. THESE are the people we came here to work with… THESE are the folks for whom we have prayed to see a grassroots Christian movement began again.

We have kept in touch since then, on and off, as we did our summer camp, and then periodically on Sunday mornings when they come around. Yesterday, between checking the internet for scores in the Australia-Brasil World Cup match, we covered the whole gamut from why we were in Uruguay, to why they came back, to the state of fluid dynamics worldwide.

At one point, I mentioned to them a little survey I was getting together to research why people came to Christ Church, and he told me, “Hands down, it’s for the kids. There is no other church around here that is doing what you guys do with kids. It might not KEEP people at your church, but you can guarantee it will get them there.”

Want to Help Get Joel Sonnenberg to Uruguay?

Joel Sonnenberg was two years old when an auto accident left him with 85% of his body burned. Twenty-five years later, after 45 surgeries, hundreds of hours of pain and therapy, the lifelong presence of a loving family, and the transforming grace of Jesus Christ, you still get only the tip of the iceberg of Joel.

We have invited Joel to Uruguay because people here need a living, in-the-flesh example of what it means to trust Christ in situations of adversity.

Christianity for Uruguayans seems at best to be a “nice idea” to make desperate people feel a little better. At worst, it is a sick game where charlatans take advantage of the weak.

But get someone who has suffered physically and still speaks of about God’s grace? Now that they will listen to. Check out Joel online at www.joel.cc.

Would you like to help get Joel to Uruguay? We are seeking partners cover the travel expenses for Joel and a companion. If you would like to help, we have established an account with OMS International, an ECFA member mission who is the principal partner in bringing Joel to Uruguay.

You can address your contribution to OMS International, earmarking your gift to “OMS-UY acct #405870”.
OMS International
Attn:Don Saum
PO Box A
Greenwood, IN 46142
www.omsinternational.org