The Christians are distinguished from other men neither by country nor language nor the customs which they observe.  For they neither inhabit cities of their own nor employ a peculiar form of speech nor lead a life which is marked out by a singularity…

They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners.  As citizens, they share in all things with others and yet endure all things as if foreigners.

Every foreign land is to them as their native country and the land of their birth as a land of strangers…

They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh.  They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.  They obey the prescribed laws of the land and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives.

They love all men and are persecuted by all…They are poor yet make many rich…To sum up in a word: What the soul is in the body, that is a Christian in the world.

Were Diognetes alive today, I wonder if he would be able to recognise a Christian.

Tonight was a meeting just as I like them. We all arrived a bit late, and everything was a bit disorganised. We discovered nobody had eaten but the soup we had made for dinner just stretched as each person turned up and joined us at the table – not that this had been planned. Had a great time just sharing news around a bowl of soup – catching up on some issues people in the group are facing related to their homes, their jobs etc. – things that we had already been praying about.

We then moved to the comfortable seats and opened the Scriptures where we had left off last time (we’re in Revelation at the moment), and although nobody had had the time to prepare a “study” as such, we drew out all kinds of insights which led into some very worthwhile learning. I think we could have all gone on much longer, but we try to respect the one and a half hours we agreed on – seeing that we meet weekly, and some have to get up early to work.

One great story we heard tonight was about an original way of starting a church. The parents of one of our house-groupies started a house church, and the way the group really took off was when they decided to have baptisms in their garden and invite all the neighbours. Many of the onlookers were that surprised to meet Christians so ingenious as to have a baptism in their garden that they asked all kinds of questions, and this process morphed into an Alpha Course which now has many of them making definite steps toward faith. This is FRANCE, folks – not India, Guatemala, or some other place where you just need to put a church sign up and they get a crowd. Who says that people aren’t interested in the gospel in “post-Christian” Europe?

Complete change of subject: this poor blog suffered from such neglect for such a long time – I hadn’t updated WordPress for ages, and when I finally did I lost all the bells and whistles in the sidebars. So we’re going for a kind of pared down, minimalist look until I get a moment to fix it.

It is impossible to stress too strongly that the beginning of mission is not an action of ours, but the presence of a new reality, the presence of the Spirit of God in power [...] The great missionary proclamations in Acts are not given on the unilateral initiative of the apostles but in response to questions asked by others, questions prompted by the presence of something which calls for explanation [...] Where the Church is faithful to its Lord, there the powers of the kingdom are present and people begin to ask the question to which the gospel is the answer. And that, I suppose, is why the letters of St. Paul contain so many exhortations to faithfulness but no exhortations to be active in mission. The Gospel in a Pluralist Society

This is from a man who spent most of his career as a missionary in India. It almost sounds heretical. He also makes the point that the end of the enterprise is not the successful conclusion of our projects, but the coming of Christ to reign. Jesus’ statement, “Where I am, there shall my servant be” is central here. Where is Jesus? At the frontier of light and darkness, where the acted out good news of the kingdom is pushing back the powers of evil, whatever form they may take. If we want to be with Jesus, that’s where we need to be.

All around me I see projects. When our projects succeed, we feel good. When they fail, we sink into existential crisis. Our whole reason for being seems to be predicated on our projects. This is because we see the Church as the source and agent of God’s coming kingdom, which is not so very far from the imperialism of medieval Christendom. The Church is not the source, but the sign and witness. It is here that the reality of the kingdom begins to break through in a visible way.

Mission is an acted out doxology. That is its deepest secret. Its purpose is that God may be glorified.

So why aren’t more people in our culture looking a the Church and asking questions?

Monday I spoke to a group of visiting Americans about French church history – I think that if I ever had to change jobs I would quite happily be a history teacher.

That evening I joined in with a series of seminars one of the churches here is running on house church/simple church. This church is in the very unique situation of preparing to merge with two other churches, and making home meetings the centre of their activity. One of the really fascinating things is that the ethnic makeup of these three churches is very diverse.

Tuesday morning Dad took school with the children while Mum helped out at La Maison – a drop-in centre for local homeless people. It is a reality check for both of us to know what some of these people go through.

Thursday evening there is a fledgling home meeting happening on the island in Nantes where we heard the great news that one of the group has just got engaged, and got into some good discussions around Genesis 1 & 2.

Friday I have 7 hours of English classes, back to back.

Saturday we had the second installment of the language café in our new venue. After much searching we found a suitable café that opens on Saturday mornings. It’s actually in the centre of town, which may have turned some people off. Nice atmosphere though, and I think we will keep it going to see what develops.

We have been to very few Sunday morning meetings since getting back from NZ, and have been enjoying the strangeness of this (after 20+ years). However, being a special day with a meal and baptisms, we spent the day with all our St. Sébastien church friends on Sunday.

And now it’s Monday again – the beginning of another week, at the end of which we will probably wonder, as usual, where the days have gone.

I found this article (courtesy of The Edge ) written by a former praise and worship “guru”, entitled Worship as Evangelism.  The context really doesn’t apply to France, as it is speaking more to the American mega-church culture.  Where we live, a mega-church has a hundred people!  And yet the church here is still influenced by the “praise and worship” movement (an example: Hillsong has now launched a church in Paris – a little taste of Australia in the city of light!  Apparently it’s doing really well – some of our Paris colleagues are involved there).

I liked this article because it poses deep questions about this view that church is fundamentally a “worship centre” that draws people (the basic function of a temple), rather than a mobile community which goes out to demonstrate Christ in the world.  The very idea that “evangelism” can effectively take place within a church building seems contradictory to me now.

Take a look if you’re interested – it’s a very well-written article.  Do you think I’m being too cynical?

I just approved a comment on some thoughts I posted a while ago under the heading Reinterpreting Traditions. It’s an article by our friend Cor the artist touching on the story of the Samaritan woman, and I thought it was too useful to hide away in the comments section of an old post. Hope you get as much out of it as I did…

Like many of you, I’ve heard and read it countless times! I know this story already for more than fifty years! Then one day as by a divine touch, the real meaning of this rich deep story hit home, at least it shook up my life.

This divine touch can leave you potentially confused, excited, reassured or, as in my case, with a glorious revelation experience! I am talking about the story of the Samaritan woman at the well in the Gospel of John 4.

By many preachers, she has always been painted as the lady with a questionable past, who went through five husbands, and the one she was living with was not her husband either, according to a very reliable source: Jesus! Surprisingly, Jesus does not turn away from her in horror and disgust, but He choses to do the opposite…to teach her! She becomes one of the first human beings to be taught the miracle and principle of the Kingdom.

Here she is, a woman belonging to the despised Samaritans, a human being without any credibility according to the Jewish laws and attitude of the time.
Even the disciples were at least “mildly” disturbed, when they found Jesus talking to her by their return to the well. Their behaviour gives us some insight in their preconceptions and ways of thinking regarding situations like these.

The disciples had no idea that they were about to go through a life-changing experience that would absolutely shatter their pre-conceptions about religion and human relationships, and would add inevitably a new level to their spiritual maturity.

First, Jesus paid attention to the person, whom He knew had more spiritual depth then many of His own people. He looked past the five husbands which could easily have been a dramatic run of illnesses in that family, and that she was therefore cared for by a certain man according to the laws at the time.
We find a similar situation in the case in the old testament of the prophet Elijah and the widow of Zarephath with her son.

This Samaritan woman turns out to be very knowledgeable about the religious environment of the times. Yes, she even knew about the Messiah who was about to come. She rises far above the mediocrity of her fellow villagers, reaches out, absorbs and processes the words of life, provided by Jesus.
This exhibition of faith puts her on a similar level with Simeon who was waiting for the Messiah as well.

There is plenty of reason and evidence to believe that, instead of the perceived impression of a lady with a past, she was in fact a lady with a future and leadership, as she was evidently a highly esteemed prophetess (Revelation 19:10… for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.) and well regarded by her own people. This explains her obvious gift of perception, the ease and authority by which she gets her fellow villagers to listen to that strange Jewish teacher: Jesus.

She was clearly steeped in religion as she new the conditions of worship in her own culture as well as the Jewish, and was most likely familiar with the “theology” surrounding it. She had all her religious facts lined up in a row and nothing would surprise her. Yes, apart from an underlying yearning for more, she was content with it, despite the obvious “enslavement” aspect. Little did she know about that glorious spiritual glowing fire that was brooding under her feet, a fire that would free, purify and cleanse her for the rest of her life.

In His short teaching-session, Jesus gets straight to the point by exposing the center-core truth about the Kingdom, which is the Spirit of God in man, thereby heralding the coming demise of the known formal type of worship, including the use of the buildings dedicated to that purpose.

The emphasis in His teaching is on the walk of a human being by the government of the Spirit of God. This Spirit is the bread of Life, and the Living water, which will quench every need and directs the receiving person into a lifestyle which is worship in itself. When the Spirit of God directs a life into a life of worship, Truth is the result, and as the truth is the person of Christ, it is easy to see that a Spirit governed life is a life lead by the living Christ.

Is it not wonderful that Jesus entrusted the principle of the Kingdom to these despised people. They invited Jesus AND the disciples to stay in their village and Jesus accepted. They stayed for two days and reading their responses and reactions, Jesus’s time in their midst changed these people involved dramaticly, including the disciples. They all went through a real-life seminar/workshop and all must have come out on the other side as changed people.

Understanding that this Kingdom-blueprint was also meant for the believers in the following ages, for us, raises in me the question; what on earth have we done with the Kingdom teaching! Jesus always taught the Kingdom power, never the church principle, only the English translation Bibles do. Perhaps we are called to choose again for the Kingdom, in order to experience unobstructed the Christ of Christianity?

The first has the intriguingly descriptive title of His International Mission, a dynamic AG church in which we were the only white faces in a big group of brown. Great to see the passion for God and for mission amongst our Polynesian brothers and sistas. The second was Pakuranga Christian Fellowship, a church with a long contact with OM, and had the great bonus of being the church of our friends Greg & Joanne who were helping lead churches in the north of France for many years. As a kiwi family with four children, they were our “inspiration” – when we met them, we thought well if they can do it, maybe we could too! They’re still very active in ministry, currently church-planting amongst international students in south Auckland.

The third was West Hamilton Anglican, which we wrote about in another post on reinterpreting traditions. Our friends here have done such a marvellous job of facilitating our stay in New Zealand. As a teenager I left an Anglican church in which if you wanted to learn about Jesus you had to really dig deep, and it’s like I’ve gone full circle as our Hamilton church family is also an Anglican church, but one in which the gospel is preached loud and clear.

It was a relief to finish the message on Sunday morning, after 5 straight weeks of preaching, and now we begin to set our sights on the long trip home. Can’t believe it’s gone so quickly.

We decided to leave it open so that the children could participate or not, depending on what they were happiest with. This is one of the issues that comes up with the whole house-church idea – what do you do with the children? In this case, the younger ones just played quietly, and the older ones sat and listened, just joining in for the prayer.

Not having Sunday School might seem like heresy in some quarters, but I think it’s only a problem if we believe that Sunday mornings are the only time that children get any spiritual input. If that is happening just as a regular part of family life, when we gather together as believers we can be quite relaxed about how much the children are involved. As long as they know they are welcome, that their participation is welcomed to the level they feel comfortable with, they benefit. Simply observing the natural way that their parents share their life of faith with friends is of value. Some of the adult discussion may be over their heads, but some of it will take root and perhaps be discussed at a later stage around the family meal table. It was lovely having the children join us, rather than being “sent out” as is normally the case.

New Zealand is a fascinating country in that, although relatively small and geographically isolated (to some of our French friends, we might as well say we’re from Mars), it is like a microcosm of what is happening in the wider world, globalisation being what it is. This is particularly true in the church – wherever we go we meet with people who are at once passionate for the church, and extremely frustrated with it, longing for a simpler, more authentic expression of a church that is a visible reflection of God’s kingdom in society. That’s very vague, but I can’t very well catch you up on all the conversations of the last month.

This weekend we are with dear friends in Lower Hutt (“Lower” in the sense of being on the Hutt river downstream from “Upper Hutt” – named after one Mr Hutt I suppose – we are not staying in some kind of inferior cabin!), and we will be sharing at Lower Hutt Baptist tomorrow – the church where my journey in God started 22 years ago. I’ll be talking on Mary and Martha – again!! Can’t get away from that story. Will do a blog post on it one of these days.

Check out Flickr for some new photos. Now that my “blog fast” is broken, there should be some more regular offering from now on…

Otherwise this visit to New Zealand is all about people! We’ve spent a lot of time on the phone and in and out of people’s homes. It’s another reminder of how rich and diverse this thing we call Church is. In the last few days we have been with friends who are all involved with kingdom stuff, but in such different ways.

After travelling to places as diverse as Ethiopia, Lebanon and Portugal, Keith, Carolyn have teamed up with Richard to establish A Rocha in New Zealand. It’s a Christian conservation organisation. Carolyn put it very succinctly when she said that A Rocha is about “the greening of the church and the churching of the greens”. I used to raise my eyebrows at Christians involved in things environmental. Couldn’t really see the point as my eschatology centred very much around the “new heavens and the new earth” that would replace this tired old earth. But somewhere along the way I realised that the earth always has been and always will be central to God’s purposes, and when we look after it we’re doing what God does. It is actually a “missional” thing in and of itself, not to mention the fact that there are so many greenies out there who have been turned off by Christian’s lack of concern for the environment. We should be leading the charge – go for it, guys!

And then we spent an afternoon with Cor and Ria. Not sure if they’re Dutch kiwis or Kiwi dutchies, but they are very special people. Cor is an expressionist painter and if you want to be blessed you should take a look at his work. Our house would be full of his paintings if we could afford it Many of his paintings express the things he’s been learning in his walk with God, although he’s very down to earth about the artistic process. It’s 10 % inspiration and 90 % perspiration. We spent the afternoon talking about our love for the church and our frustration with it. As Queen Victoria put it so beautifully, “If all the people who fall asleep in church were laid end to end, they would be a lot more comfortable.”

Several generations later we see King David undertaking exactly the same project which God had blessed in Moses’ day when he sent his commanders throughout the land to count the fighting men of Israel and Judah. The text does not elaborate on David’s motives for doing this, but we see Joab, his trusted advisor, warning him not to do it. David stubbornly continues with his project, and finishes with a stricken conscience, repenting before God for this foolish sin which resulted in a severe outpouring of God’s judgement in the land.

Is God capricious? Does he have double standards? Does he have favourites? No to all of the above. The point is that without faith it is impossible to please God. Moses acted by faith, obeying God’s commandment. David acted out of presumption, as if he could force God’s blessing just by cutting and pasting the acts of the past into his situation.

It occurs to me that we are so like that. How often we do the things that God has blessed in the past, expecting the same blessings today. We are so easily trapped in old forms and traditions which have long passed their “use by” date. This is especially true of our ecclesiology – our way of being Church. Going to our ancestors and forbears in the faith is a great source of inspiration, but copying their methods and actions can be perilous. God blessed them because of their faith, which for them was acting in accordance with God’s leading for their situation. There was nothing magical about their methods. Making a tradition out of the methods of the past degenerates very easily into idolatry where we worship the forms and forget the meaning behind their original function.

We need a fresh prophetic revelation for today, to help us apply God’s eternal and unchanging word in our situation. We must go to Him for this revelation, and not just copy what has gone before.

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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. Should small groups be seen as complimentary to the Sunday morning, a kind of evangelistic “stepping stone” toward church for friends who find coming to a Sunday morning too freaky. Or should small groups be seen as the real thing, with no specific aim of getting people along to a meeting on a Sunday morning?

In the first model we continue trying to get people to come to us. So much of the “evangelism” we have been involved in has been essentially a “come” message: “come to us and you’ll meet Jesus and he’ll give you a wonderful life, as long as you keep coming along on a Sunday morning.” The second model is more of a “go” thing: we go to people, and help them create church in their own situation, with their own circle of friends and contacts. The first model we’ve had loads of experience with, the second none whatsoever so everything I say on the matter is entirely theoretical. We concluded that both models are necessary.

Why I aim for a Reformation is a post I came across which has some interesting thoughts on the subject.

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.

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?

What made it unusual for us that it will be our last. In the past we have always been involved at every level, but this time we were pretty much able to sit back and watch it all happen – well, I put together a choir at the last minute for one song, which probably sounds like a big deal, but it all came together without much input from me. The children were all involved of course, and really seemed to enjoy themselves.

It feels so weird knowing that we’re moving on – a bit like the elves leaving Middle Earth We feel like flies on the wall, just watching it all happen. There were several visitors there today, a number of new families who have been coming regularly for a while – don’t think we have ever had so many children for a special day like this before. The young people completely took care of getting the meal organised and serving it all (for “meal” read four-course, three-hour long extravaganza – in France when we eat together, we don’t do things by halves!) It was great seeing different ones put their gifts to good use.

My emotions are torn between being relieved and excited to be moving on to something new, and feeling rather sad that we’re going to miss out on an exciting new phase in the life of the church: I tell you the truth, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds.

Maria with friends Louise and Camille, and her Mum Sarah.