Bournagain

In the weekend we saw our eldest daughter (on the left) baptised with 3 of her friends. So how does a (nearly) 14-year old come to the decision to be baptised? Listening to their stories we heard how during a summer camp a couple of years ago, sleeping in the open air on a starry night, they were all really impressed by the beauty of the night sky. Someone asked the question, if you were to die tonight, do you know where you’d end up? A big question, but one which, is a question teenagers ask much more than we might think. This question really got them thinking, and led these four girls to a real encounter with God that night, which they demonstrated by taking the plunge to mark the beginning of their big adventure in faith. Awesome!

Have you ever noticed that the first utterances of God to man that are recorded in the book of Genesis are questions? We can suppose that God who knows all things was not unaware of the transaction that had taken place between Adam, Eve and the serpent, and yet instead of berating them for their foolishness, he begins with a question: Where are you? In the very first scene revealing God’s relationship with man, we see God searching for his children who, out of fear and pride, have hidden from him. God has continued to seek man throughout his history.

When he finds them, he persists in his questioning: Who told you that you are naked? As if to say, “I made you that way! You have no reason to be ashamed”. Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from? Why would God ask what he already knows, if not to allow man the opportunity to confess. Before speaking judgement, he allows man to take full responsibility for his actions, thereby affirming his humanness. He allows room for reflection, confession and repentance, so that man might be restored. Yet rather than recognise his own fault, Adam blames God, and then his wife, for his own folly. What is this you have done? A fourth question, which Eve in turn answers in blaming the serpent. Neither acknowledges wrongdoing. What would have happened had they confessed? Was it the eating of the fruit or the failure to ask for forgiveness that saw them ultimately excluded from the garden, and thus human life the way God intended it.

God continues his search, probing into the heart of man, drawing him out. To Cain he asks Why are you angry? Why is your face downcast? Is this not the concern of a loving Father? Yet rather than receive that love, Cain allows his anger to give birth to murder. There again, God stays his judgement, preferring to allow the possibility of a contrite heart. Although Abel’s blood was screaming Cain’s guilt, God asks: Where is your brother? Cain adds falsehood to his crimes. And still God questions: What have you done?

This same God questions us today, not imposing his truth, nor bringing judgement before its time. He allows us to draw our own conclusions, willing us to choose rightly, longing for our restoration, yet permitting us to reject him if we so choose. If we reject him, our refusal will not go unjudged indefinitely. Today is amnesty day – our opportunity to confess our faults, to overcome our pride, and to agree with God’s appraisal. Who knows but that it might be our last.

Following our discussions on mission in Europe near Valence last week, the Lausanne World Pulse had an interesting article on The European Church Today: Reflections on Her context. It’s gives a useful overview of the details, without getting too bogged down in history. If you’re like me, you often don’t get to the end of pages that you click through to from links on people’s blogs, but if you make it through to the end of this one you’ll get to some interesting thoughts on examples of the openness of today’s Europeans to spiritual ideas – important implications for mission if we could just see the challenges as opportunities and not reasons for failure.

Sitting in the train on the way back from a couple of very fruitful days near Valence with friends working with Bethany Fellowship. It has been nearly 11 years since we left Bethany in Minneapolis after two years of studies, and we have always been a little sad that we haven’t managed to keep contact as well as we would have hoped. So when we were asked to join a conference of their European workers we jumped at the chance. Bethany’s European personnel are primarily church planters and workers in the UK, France, Slovenia, Germany, with a number of alumni working in other places. It was great to meet old friends and join in on discussions about recalibrating Bethany’s European focus and getting some insight on what mission in Europe might mean for Bethany in the future. Although we don’t work directly with the organisation they often function in partnership and cooperation with others and we would love to do more with them. The publicity for their mission training operation in Minneapolis has been called a “best kept secret” and it’s true that although the work is not very well known, it has been remarkable what has been accomplished, especially in developing an extensive network of culturally adapted mission training outfits in some very diverse places (102 to be exact). They call it “GO 100″ if you want to know more. We also talked about what that might mean in Europe, and specifically how their “hands on” training with an excellent new internship programme could be part of this new vision. Bethany played a pretty foundational role in our lives and we’re thrilled to have reestablished that contact.

How refreshing to find this interview with Bishop N.T Wright in Time Magazine.

The question of heaven is a good example of how we fail to understand the clear and obvious teaching of Scripture because of the blinkers imposed by our “Christian” culture. Men have been burnt at the stake for less than Wright’s assertions about what happens after death. This is a crucial question which cannot help but influence the way we live. The “it’ll all pan out in the end” approach to eschatology and the question of what happens when you die has left many of us ineffective and unproductive in our faith. I think there’s a real need for us to get our theology sorted on this issue.

Every now and then a film comes out which is greatly anticipated at our place, and the next Narnia film, Prince Caspian is definitely one of them. We have the release date in the calendar, and I’m sure we will probably end up reading the book again to at least one of our children before then (not for the first time). I still have my old copies of the Narnia chronicles that I read and re-read until all the pages started falling out – we have just had to retire my decrepit copy of The Silver Chair after one last nostalgic reading to our 9-year old. These stories have been part of my mental furniture for years, and before I really new anything about being a Christian, I recognise now that they stirred in me my first God-longings.

Of course, I know I’ll be disappointed with the film, as one always is to a certain extent with films made from one’s favourite books. But I think they did a pretty good job with the first film, and I’m looking forward to seeing how the filmmakers have imagined Narnia in the years leading up to Caspian’s reign.

Here’s the first trailer, and if you’re a Narnia junky, take a look at news of the movie on NarniaWeb.

I found this on a page introducing Tom Sine’s soon to be published new book, The New Conspirators. The book definitely looks worth a read, by the way.

“What a strange way to start a revolution
. . . And what a strange way to end a world tour.”
We worship the seed that died.
The revolution will not be televised.
It will not be brought to you by Fox News with commercial interruptions.
It will not be sandwiched between ads to accelerate you life or be all you can be.
There will be no re-runs.
The revolution will be live.
The revolution will be in the streets.
The revolution will be cleaning toilets and giving another blanket to Karen.
The revolution will not be talking about poverty in hotel banquet rooms.
It will be eating beans and rice with Ms. Sunshine and watching Back to the Future with our neighbor Mary.
Get ready, friends…God is preparing us for something really, really – small.

Martyn Joseph, British songwriter

We had a super day on Saturday. I haven’t written about this yet as I’m always a bit reluctant to blog about events before they happen. Saturday was the launch of a new inter-church youth event we have been preparing for several months now called LinkUp. It was an idea that we had been tossing around for years, but for various reasons the time just didn’t seem right until now. Throughout 2007 we became increasingly aware of a desire amongst teens and twenty-somethings in the churches in Nantes for more reality in their walk with God (the vertical relationship) and in their friendship with other Christians across denominational boundaries, and with unbelieving friends (the horizontal relationship). So out of this need grew the vision for “LinkUp”, which is just a catchy phrase for the first and second greatest commandments: love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, and love your neighbour as yourself.

We had a GREAT time! The programme combined games, food and “hang out” time with creative worship and learning on the theme “Droit au coeur” (straight to the heart) where we looked at what it actually means to love God with all your heart. We were determined to make it as interactive and “communal” as possible, so most of the learning time happened in small groups led by a core group of young adults who were willing to be big brother or sister for the teens. We also wanted to try something different with the worship, and to get beyond just singing. The result was a series of “worship stations” where people could express themselves through art, psalm-writing, mime, dance, or just being quiet. Of course, we sang as well … I made a real effort to shake the dust out of our usual repertoire and introduced some new songs. I’m trying to keep to a minimum 50 % of songs originally written in French, rather than translations. It is true that I am at a time in my life where I don’t connect with God through music nearly as well as I used to, but my memory of the powerful effect that sung worship had on me as a teenager is a good motivator.

Some reactions: “We have all been on a little cloud since yesterday!” “God was really at the centre of this event.” “Can’t wait till the next LinkUp!” And then there was the young lady for whom everything fell into place when she realised God was speaking to her through the Parable of the Sower (our theme text for the learning time), and she handed over the ownership of her life to Jesus, a huge encouragement to the friends who had invited her along. When we counted up the number of participants who registered for the event, we realised that there were 77 of us, from 7 different churches! This does not account for all the churches in Nantes, but it is a good beginning.

The next LinkUp: March 8th.

Let me introduce to you Nicolas, Anaïs, Marianne, and Esther, four young friends from Nantes who will be leaving next week for South Africa where they will spend seven months learning what mission is all about in a context that is completely different to what they’re used to here in France. They will be joining a programme run by OM South Africa which combines Christian training with practical service. We got to know Marianne, Nicolas & Esther well during our time running the youth group at the Saint Sébastien church, particularly during our trip to Spain in 2006 to assist some churches in the Madrid area. Anaïs has also participated in an OM project in Portugal, and all four of them really inspire me. They all completed their high school diplomas last summer, and have all been working long hours ever since to fund their trip. It will be a great experience, but also a sacrifice as they will be living very simply, and have had to put their studies on hold. It has been great to see their single-mindedness and commitment to the cause. If anyone complains to me about the aimlessness of today’s younger generation, I just want to say “look at these guys”! Some would say they’re exceptional, but in fact we often see the same kind of spirit in many of our young friends in the churches here.

So, Nicolas, Anaïs, Marianne, and Esther, have a great time, and we look forward to reading your updates. Follow their progress at name4godfr.blogspot.com.

Came across this excellent new acronym the other day from a blog post that turned up in my feed reader: WBKWWAD, which stands for “we barely know what we are doing”. It expresses so beautifully how we are feeling at the moment about doing mission in Europe. It was in the context of an interesting account of churches starting up in Starbucks shops – church life seems to be springing up in the most unlikely places these days. Apparently it was an American sociologist, Ray Oldenburg, who first coined the term “third place”, to refer to a place where community life happens outside of our “first place”, which is the home, and our “second place”, which is our place of work. He stresses the importance of informal public gathering spaces in the health of a community – something that is sadly lacking in the suburban deserts of large American cities. I haven’t read his books – although we do share one thing in common, both having studied in Minnesota (where the cold does wonders with the brain cells, apparently…) You don’t have to think too hard before you realise that there is more than a little wisdom in this concept, and between the lines some probing questions about the way we usually do church. The churches we have been involved with for 20+ years have been gathering spaces, yes, but neither informal or public.

Although we like quoting that “the church is the only institution that exists for outsiders” (who said that?), the reality is that our church involvement can make it unlikely that we will have regular, natural contact with those outside, because we’re too busy with what’s going on inside. This “third space” concept really intrigues me. We have been working to create a “third space” for a few months now (use the “Email us” tab above for details), and I’m sure there are other existing “third spaces” in our community that we haven’t even discovered yet, where we should be hanging out more. We don’t have Starbucks in France, but one lovely thing is that the cities are not (yet) too suburbanised, and even large urban conglomerations are more like a patchwork of little villages joined together. This is a feature of urban life here that I’m not sure we as the church have really seen the potential of.