Bournagain

Have you heard about the latest riot in Paris? A young guy travelling on the metro punched a couple of controllers when they asked him for his ticket and it all went downhill from there. Conflicting reports suggest there were about 7 wounded (mostly police and metro staff), and 13 arrested including a number of minors. It’s intriguing to see how the international media deal with these things, and how there’s always a rush to find some kind of deep meaning behind it all.

With only a month to go till the presidential elections the candidates have made much political mileage out of it. Read the rest of this entry »

Being an eternal optimist I have always been pretty sceptical about Murphy’s Law. This week has cured me of my scepticism. We leave here in 3 days for 4 months sabbatical, and it seems like everything is conspiring against us getting on that plane.

In the last few days we have had a leak in our house (resulting in no heating, irregular water supply, a gooey plastery mess and lots of phone calls to the insurer), we have been taken to the cleaners by a dodgy plumber, we have lost a credit card, Elise sprained her finger due to an altercation with a basketball, there is a seemingly unsolveable administrative problem with our social security over the fact that we are out of the country for 4 months, there is another wrangle due to a miscommunication over our car insurance, a low flying soccer ball upended a cup of tea into the computer keyboard – colds, headaches, and a strained back needing physiotherapy – how can all this happen in a week?? It’s like being in the middle of a hurricane. And somehow normal life has had to continue through it all. Read the rest of this entry »

Our house is full of teenagers again – well, pre-teens really. Maria is having a girls night to say goodbye to school friends before leaving for distant shores for a few months. We were encouraged that one of the Dads that didn’t know us at all called to find out who we are and wanted to meet us before deciding whether his daughter could come or not – we’re not so weird after all wanting to know the parents of the girls that invite her to their homes! They are still 12 after all, but there’s such pressure on kids to be independent.

He stayed for a drink. Interesting guy – a former social worker very familiar with the kinds of “hard cases” Heather meets at La Maison on Monday mornings. He defined himself as a “catho de gauche” – a left-wing Catholic, which he also defined as a humanist (super handlebar moustache!) He burnt out in his work with street people, and this meeting comes at an interesting point in a discussion Heather and I have been having about what motivates people to care for the unwanted, and to stick at it, when God isn’t in the picture. Read the rest of this entry »

Bundled the family into the car and headed off to the coast last week-end to get some beach therapy. We went with OM friends Marcel and Ase, and a new Romanian friend who has recently turned to Christ and is part of the new home group we have recently started. Had a great time. Seems like all I ever take photos of is my children, but I love looking at photos of them so here are some more. Need to work out how to get photos aligned properly in wordpress but as I am an HTML ignoramus, it’s going to take a while so bear with me.

Had one of those marvellous long French lunches today with some friends (the kind where you’re still at the table at 5.00). These people know how to eat! We got onto talking about my favourite subject (the church). There seems to be no question in the minds of many evangelical friends I speak to that the church is in need of a new reformation of some description, but just how radical are we prepared to be?

There is general agreement that Christian fellowship is best lived out in small groups, that if we limit ourselves to Sunday mornings it’s too easy to fake it. It’s much harder to hide in a small group, it’s more authentic, and a more natural environment to learn in. So far nothing new.

But where we diverged a little was over whether or not just adding small groups to existing Sunday-morning-centred church was actually sufficient. Read the rest of this entry »

Over the last couple of days I could really feel the stress building – with our departure for the southern hemisphere only 14 days away. There just seems like a mountain of stuff still to do, and then yesterday I had one of those days when you run around doing all kinds of “necessary” stuff, but none of which is on your priority list. By the time 4.00 came around you could just about see the steam coming out of my ears. And then a little voice inside said, “go for a bike ride”. In France people who hear little voices generally find themselves put on a lot of medication fast. But as there were no psychiatrists handy I decided to obey that little voice, dropped everything, hopped on my bike, and spent a couple of hours cycling along that river you can see in our header bar.

Why don’t I do that more often? It is really amazing how your perspective can change in an instant. I had my eyes on the track in front of me, and at one point stopped, looked up and saw the most stunning green postcard vista in front of me, and the little voice suddenly became incredibly clear and authoritative: “Simon, stop worrying. I am all you need.” That was all. It was like someone just changed the CD in my brain, and my thoughts were back on the right track again.

I need to stop allowing myself to live as if God wasn’t there.

Just came back from a meeting that I could never have imagined happening even a year ago. It was just a meeting of the musicians at the St. Sébastien church to get a little bit more organised for the Sunday worship times. So what’s the big deal? Well, there were 13 musicians there – THIRTEEN!! It’s amazing what happens when somebody (yours truly) leaves. All kinds of people start coming out of the woodwork! And the meeting went really well and I did nothing toward it other than be there.

After feeling like “Mr Music” in the church for the better part of 8 years, this is all so weird. So many conflicting emotions – should I feel thrilled at all these new gifts coming forward in the church, guilty at not having got things better organised sooner, satisfied at being able to move on without leaving everyone in the lurch, miffed that they’re going to get on perfectly well without me, sad to be missing out on these exciting new developments…?

Mission seems to be about putting your gifts at the disposal of God and others, doing what you can, trusting that God is more than able to carry on the good work he has started and that other people won’t mess it up, and then leaving just when things are getting really good!

The leaving is the hard bit.

“Every church member who loves the church will also be deeply pained by it. This does not, however, call for discarding the church, but for reforming and renewing it.” This quote so reflects my thinking about the Church at the moment that I thought I’d share it with you. It comes from Transforming Mission: Paradigm Shifts in Theology of Mission by D. J. Bosch.

He talks about the tension that exists between the ideal Christian community that we long to experience, and the weekly reality that can seem so insipid at times. After 20 years of commitment to local churches, my feeling about church life over the past 12 months has been one of at times overwhelming fatigue. The thing that has saved me from cynicism has been the wonderful people in the churches, which is not surprising when we consider that the church is not the building or the religious system, it’s the people.

I have been trying to keep abreast of some of the many-faceted discussion on the Internet about the “emergent church”, simple church, home church etc. etc. Some of it is inspiring, some of it so negative about the existing “institutional” church it leaves a bad taste in your mouth. How to walk the fine line of living with the dissatisfaction and unfulfilled desire on one hand, while upholding the Church as the divine strategy for communicating the kingdom of God to the world? Bosch quotes a timely warning from Bonhoeffer :

“He who loves the dream of a Christian community more than the community itself, often does great damage to that community, no matter how well-intentioned he might be”.

I have no doubt that God is working in the local churches around us. But I have the uncomfortable feeling that the church’s structures often stand in the way of Christians fulfilling their mission in the world. What we call “evangelism” is all about trying to get people to come into our buildings, and very little about being out there making a difference among this generation’s “lepers, widows, poor, lame, blind” – the kind of people that Jesus spent much of his time with.

Kingdom people seek first the Kingdom of God and its justice; church people often put church work above concerns of justice, mercy and truth. Church people think about how to get people into the church; Kingdom people think about how to get the church into the world. Church people worry that the world might change the church; Kingdom people work to see the church change the world. Howard Snyder 1983, Liberating the Church

This is of course a very old discussion which has been going on since long before I became a Christian, and it’s a shame that it’s taken me 20 years to catch up! Back in my student days when I knew everything I used to think that people who talked like this were “unspiritual” and had their priorities in the wrong place.

Anyone out there feeling like me?

Flying in the sky

Out the window people wave
And up we go like a bird in the air
Singing happily as we fly
Mountains and rivers everywhere

Higher and higher we go in the sky
Down below is Grandpa’s house
So we wave as we go by
But he looks as small as a mouse

Everything’s strange from up here
But more familiar as we get near

Laura Bourn (10)

Have you ever tried to take a half decent family photo with 6 people? We just had a friend take some pics. She took about 30 of them – hilarious. What with tongues poking out, fingers up noses, closed eyes, grumpy faces, there weren’t too many useable ones. Here’s one that’s reasonably respectable.  Thanks Phoenicia for those latent photography skills (Simon, Laura – 10, Elise – 8, Isaac – 5, Heather, Maria – 12)