Inspiration Bohemia

I also was in Prague last week and truly enjoyed it. On http://marcsmessages.blogspot.com I published my daily impressions. In the mornings there were seminars on 'the practice of ministry in the post... world' and in the evenings several social events, including the prophetic wedding Abigail refered to.

Greetings from Prague! Just wanted to write about Derek Chapman and Amy MacDonald's wedding that I went to yesterday- it was amazing!!! God only told them to get married a week ago, as part of the Epicentrum Prague worship event (a follow-up to what happened in Austin, Texas last year). It's been a busy week pulling everything together, but a joy to serve them and be a part of what God was doing. It was costly for them to do their wedding this way, without family around and without all the minutely planned details, but it was a wedding which was true to them and to what God is doing in and through them, and it was a real blessing to be a part of it. With Derek and Amy being prophets, the wedding had a significantly prophetic edge (in terms of the church and where Jesus wants to take it as his bride) that I think we're all going to be processing for some time yet. But, in summary, it was cool!! And Andrew Jones looked extremely funky in his morning suit and biker boots!

Some news from Cincinnati...

God continues to open doors. This week Owen and Sandie are going to Chicago to help equip some urban missionaries. They were invited by friend Bart Campolo to speak to the City Directors of the Mission Year program. Mission Year places young people in urban neighborhoods for 1 year to live in communitiy with each other while serving and blessing urban neighborhoods. They do an amazing job of incarnating the gospel in some difficult places. The potential for them to plant reproducing house churches is enormous. I think the Brocks hope to inspire some of that while there. More info on Mission Year here

Dave and Jody are going to Columbus this weekend to teach at the Urban Center for Spiritual Formation. This is a new initiative led by our friends Mark and Jen Palmer from the Landing Place (a network of simple churches, ministries, and other cool artsy stuff). I’m assuming they’ll be teaching on spiritual formation in a community living context. I’m not sure. Dave’s not sure either. He probably won’t know till he opens his mouth and starts teaching this Saturday! Ahhh, the gift of teaching...

I’m buying tickets today for a trip to the east coast and Quebec. Joe Boyd and I are going there to build relationships with several church planters. Our goals are simply to learn from them and encourage them. We’re hoping that some partnerships will develop over time. There are several emerging networks on the east coast (as well some established ones we hope to see as well) and Quebec. The current plan is to go to Boston, New Hampshire, New York, and then drive to Quebec. The trip is being generously funded by DAWN ministries. More on this one as we get closer to the trip...

Author Douglas Rushkoff (Cyberia, Ecstasy Club, Media Virus, etc.) recently posted a fascinating piece about the renaissance occurring in global culture today -- tying together loose ends from art, mathematics and physics, media and of course the Internet. He writes about the change in perspective brought about by Renaissance art, and compares that to the multiplicity of perspectives occurrring in culture today. Here's a snippet: The evidence of today's renaissance is at least as profound as that of the one that went before. The16th Century saw the successful circumnavigation of the globe via the seas. The 20th century saw the successful circumnavigation of the globe from space. The first pictures of earth from space changed our perspective on this sphere, forever. In the same century, our dominance over the planet was confirmed not just through our ability to travel around it, but to destroy it. The atomic bomb (itself the result of a rude dimensional interchange between submolecular particles) gave us the ability to destroy the globe. Now, instead of merely being able to circumnavigate "God's" creation, we could actively destroy it. This is a new perspective. From his essay "Renaissance now?"

Kevin, If the drive takes you anywhere near Philadelphia, let me know. I'd love to hang out. I still owe you $10 for downloading a VC handbook! --eggbert

Met with freind, Joe Boyd last night... we're planning a trip to Boston/New Hampshire (USA) area in late July/early August... from there we plan to drive to Quebec City (Canada).... our plans are simple: to meet and hopefully encourage emerging networks of simple churches in the NorthEast (USA) and Quebec. If anyone has any contacts in those areas please let me know - kevin@vineyardcentral.com.... thanks.....

I was talking about what Andrew mentioned below on my blog this morning - won't go all into it again here. I repeat his call to pray for the Catholic Bishops this week at they meet in Dallas. You can listen to live coverage of the event there by going to EWTN, clicking on the "radio" menu and choosing "listen live." God's Grace be with them and the rest of His Body.

Article by Neil Cole found on House2House about True Apostles.

Pray for the Catholic Bishops. Bishops facing tough choices at Dallas meeting The nation's 300 Catholic bishops will meet in Dallas Thursday through Saturday and try to hammer out a policy on handling sex abusers, especially when it involves youth and children

alan, good question:

interesting, is it not, that we spend the better part of 18 years telling children that they are not allowed in "grown-up church" only to ask why, as adults, they are not in church? the reasons?

1. kids cry! praise God, some expression of emotion in church.
2. kids squirm! after a 40 minute boring sermon and dead songs - I SQUIRM.
3. kids don't understand! heck, 99% of the times adults don't understand (and the 1% they do, they don't get it right.)

i remember one of the very first churches i served as solo pastor (i was going to say "pastor solo" but then figured that would be too "star war-ie") i gave a "children's message" (usual a sign that we were about to kick the kids out of the church) after the service an elderly man came to me and said that that was the very first time in 50 years he actually understood what was being said. too many churches take to heart the kjv of scripture where it says "suffer the children unto me" - not remembering that the word "suffer" has changed in meaning. we need to embrace our children, the best way a child can learn to pray is to see their parents pray; the best way a child can learn how to be a cheerful giver, is to see their parents give with a cheerful heart. it does not matter how "cool" our children's program is, during worship - nothing is cooler then seeing tour parents worship a loving and true God.

- just my thoughts.

what do we do with the kids!?

That's a huge question for a lot of us who are planting churches in a new paradigm. Do we have "Sunday School"? Do we put them in a different house or room with a baby sitter if we're doing house church? What!? It seems the answer is coming back to a good many of us that it is high time the kids be treated as part of the community and allowed to participate in community activities, meetings, etc. like the adults. It's an integral part of the new ecclesiastical revolution if you ask me. So, how does that look? How? Rob Graham from Levi's Table e-mailed me about this, suggesting a new forum to discuss this. I thought - team blog! So we have started a new blog devoted to the ongoing discussion what do we do with the kids!? Take a look - you may even want to be a part. We have people already from one end of the US to the other, and New Zealand.

new job

i have a new job! this may come as a surprise to people that know me well as i've worked for youth for christ for 14 years now. but it's time for a change... i will be working for the church mission society as their national youth co-ordinator starting on 1 september. cms are a mission agency, strongly linked with the anglican church. they've been around for 200 years and have done fantastic stuff down the years all round the world. but like so many organisations they are wrestling with what it means to do mission and what church should now be like in the new cultural context we find ourselves in. to try and develop new approaches of mission and church cms have set a new department 'impact' - this is the department i will be part of. youth for cms is age 16-25. the positioning of the job in this department is an exciting move i think. the job is to help develop a mission movement amongst youth in the uk and also to link and join in with a global mission movement so the links via blogs and all that could grow. youth congregations, emerging church, and all that.... are very much part of the brief. i'll let you know how it goes!

New book says Christians suffered most "The New Persecuted, Inquiries into Anti-Christian Intolerance in the New Century of Martyrs"

New book reviewed here called "The Faith: A History of Christianity," by Brian Moynahan

community or tribe

we have been talking about the difference between "community" and "tribe" on the e-group "postmodern_theology" and i got to wondering. as a postmodern people we claim to want to be connected, and with the possible accepting of this blog - what community do we have? most of our "postmodern sites" operate in our respective vacuums, with the possible exceptions of jordon cooper, next-wave, ginkworld, and seven - we just don't "connect." i think, before we can say we want to develop community - we need to be willing to truly be connected. and when i say connected, we need to speak beyone "special events" that happen once a year, and only for those who can afford to get hook in - john