Making Room

Carol service tonight, and the church was heaving. I'm not sure what happened to the fire regulations but we had stacking chairs everywhere and a fairly challenging mix of candles, carol sheets and excited kids! But how can you turn people away from a Carol Service when its minus three outside? I was the inn keeper - or rather I read a highly adapted version of Luke's gospel in the voice of the inn keeper. That too was about 'no room at the inn' and then 'making room'.

Walking home later, under a wonderfully clear star filled sky which was allowing even those minus degrees to escape, I reflected further on 'making room'. Not so much the rather prosaic 'making room for Jesus in your heart' - mine's full of valves and sinues - but rather God making room for me. It strikes me that there was no reason at all why Father, Son and Holy Spirit could not have gone on enjoying each others fellowship throughout eternity, without all these risks of creation. The risk of creating a world that we so easily mess up, and women and men who forget their place and try to be God. But that's just the beauty of it all - with no compulsion at all, God made room for us. That's what creation is all about - God made room for us. It's like eternity was full (complete) with Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and yet God created a space for us, for me. Wow!

If mission is 'in the pattern of God's dealings with us' then mission is also about making space. Even when life is full the love of God calls us to make space for the child who is hungry, the alcoholic who smells, and the angry young man with too much money and too little sense. Years ago Michel Quoist wrote a prayer called Before you Lord in which he talks very powerfully about this 'making room' for others in our lives - as God has made room for us. Use the link and pray the prayer - I dare you.

Virtually friends

I'm not good at keeping up with Facebook but having put up the Christmas tree, survived the supermarket and sorted out my home group for January I decided to skim through my home page. What an amazing bunch of friends I have!

Justin is 'as happy as a 4 year old' walking and rolling in the snow (good picture!), Stephen thinks cheese graters are pretty sharp on the fingers (which leaves me wondering what he does with grated cheese as 11.00pm.), Bindy just posted three great pictures of snow on the river Lot just outside their front door (in France), Geoff had his flight from Chicago to NYC cancelled and is waiting to be rescheduled, and Jill 'loves her job' - but I have forgotten what she does!

The strange thing is I've emailed several friends in different parts of the world today, read my Facebook and prayed for two very speciual people who I haven't seen in ages - but I haven't seen my neighbours all day and I'm not even sure I know whether Alice (in the house opposite mine) is at home right now or back in hospital. I have great friends here in Oxford, and good neighbours too, but my friends out there in cyberspace are important too. How do you define friendship? What is Jill's job?

13,589,257

That's how many people had signed the Avaaz petition to world leaders gathered in Copenhagen when I last checked their website earlier this evening. I'm not sure whether that gets them a world record for the largest petition ever but I do know its a lot of people - more than voted for the X-Factor winner! But that's just as it should be, after all the future of our planet is slightly more important that Joe McElderry's singing career.

The petition says, "We call on each of you to make the necessary concessions to meet your historic responsibilities in this crisis. Rich countries must offer fair funding, and all countries must set ambitious targets on emissions. Do not leave Copenhagen without a fair, ambitious and binding deal that keeps the world safe from catastrophic global warming of 2 degrees."

When I logged on to sign I was struck by the single word 'concessions'. In fact it almost stopped me signing. My struggle with the c-word is that it implies that I have a right to burn as much fossil fuel as I like and fill the sky with CO2 but, 'as a concession' to some suffering people in Bangladesh or somewhere I will make a generous gesture and reduce my emissions a little. But this is not about generosity, its about responsibility, and for Christians its about stewardship. However, I'm not naive enough not to realise that the world of politics, especially international politics, is all about concessions and compromises. So for the sake of a result I was prepared to ask our leaders for concessions ... but in my heart I really hope we might see a little more responsibility and even stewarship of God's wonderful creation.

The Bishop and the Taliban

What a gift for the Daily Telegraph - a bishop, indeed the Church of England bishop for the Armed Forces - who is caught praising the Taliban for their faith and sense of layalty to each other. In fact the paper made so much of the story on Monday that Bishop Stephen Venner was forced to appear on the BCC apologising, recanting and musing whether his indiscretion might cost him his job. Of course what bishops should say is that Taliban are bad guys and British soldiers are good guys, full stop.

Bishop Stephen's real sin was, of course, to completely underestimate the British press who are convinced that none of its readers have any capacity to deal with shades of grey, subtlety or nuance. For that he is guilty. His sin appears even worse when two days later we read of more bombings in Pakistan and another 22 innocent people dead in Dera Ghazi Khan.

But if the Telegraph will only let the man speak then he might have a point to make which could challenge our simplistic thinking and help us to engage with the real forces behind terrorism. He speaks of course about the power of faith (not just religious faith?) to motivate and empower people as well as the significance of 'community', 'commradeship' or (to use a churchy word) 'fellowship'. Without in any way approving the object of Taliban faith or its outworkings in violent action we can, nevertheless allow our reflection on their faith and brotherhood to challenge the depth of our own faith in God and the community we find (or don't find) within the Christian church.

Now that Bishop Stephen has apologised for his naivity perhaps the Telegraph might like to apologise for its treatment of its readers as simpletons - unable to even begin thinking about this highly complex human conflict of convictions.

The Professor and the Bishop

For almost fifteen years now I have been meeting with a small group of 'fellow pilgrims' with whom I once sent a month living in Windsor Castle. That was a very special month - a wonderful warm English summer, royalty as neighbours, the historic St George's chapel and its choir to aid worship and six great colleagues to work and reflect with. We met again a few weeks ago and as a reward for organising our meeting place (alas not Windsor Castle this time!) I received a book by one of our number.

Taproots for Transformation by Prof. Richard Whitfield is not the sort of book I would naturally read but as it was written and gifted by a friend a have been exploring its pages, or perhaps I should say 'joining in its conversation'. The book takes the form of a 200 page conversation between Richard (a professor of education passionate about child development and adult nurture) and Bruce Gilberd (the retired bishop of Auckland, New Zealand). As Christmas approaches I quote one short passage - from Richard:

"The baby born at Bethlehem, whose parents ensure that he avoids Herod's jealous infanticide, who, from a carpenter's apprenticeship, becomes the radical teacher and healer, and who dies unjustly, with his integrity intact, with two thieves on a Calvary cross changes how we might view each other. ... Everyone counts, and profoundly. ... Now we must avoid [all human] dereliction in the future by letting deep spiritual taproots source humanitity's transformation, in which 'religion' as such is clearly a very mixed blessing." If you want to read more you can find the book here.

Positively Gideon

I have spend quite a lot of the past day with Canon Gideon Byamugisha (right) from Uganda. If you haven't heard of him don't worry - but you should have! Gideon was the first religious leader in Africa to publically say that he is HIV positive. He is now the Goodwill Ambassador on HIV and AIDS for Christian Aid and engaged in a hundred different programmes to change our attituded towards people living with HIV and AIDS. Last night he was awarded the prestigous Niwano Peace Prize.

Is being positive a negative thing? Not if you get anywhere near Gideon - he's one of the most positive people I have come across for a long time, positive about life, the gospel, and AIDS. Could I catch something from Gideon sharing time with him today? Yes, he is highly infectious - don't get too close or you really will catch a nasty case of joy in the gospel and anger at the way so many people living with HIV/AIDS are treated in our world. We had great conversations about the difference between sin, failure, criminality and sickness. We touched on the new (homophobic?) bill being pushed through the Ugandan parliament at the moment. I listened as he spoke about living life to its maximum potential (John 10:10). Great stuff.

And ... don't forget World Aids Day is just ten days away.

Think positive!

A grown up ministry

It feels like I grew up this week. A little baby that I sort of adopted ten years ago has just become a responsible adult. It has been great fun for me, over those years, to nurture the Faith2Share vision and to see an ever-widening network of mission agencies coming together and enjoying each other - most of the time! Now we have become a charity and that means we have to act responsibly - maybe a little boring, but growing up can be fun.

We submitted our carefully prepared application to the UK Charity Commission in late October and were told not to expect to hear anything for a couple of months - then less than two weeks later Faith2Share Charity No. 1132727 was born. I couldn't believe it when I opened the letter. The good news is that we can now raise money and get some tax back from the government - and that means we can really do the business of mission. To be a charity you need trustees and over the summer we found four great people to do that - four people representing six countries. How? A Kenyan running a mission agency in New Zealand, a Canadian businessman, a Sinaporean teaching mission in Britain and an American mission leader in California - welcome Steve, Loun, Robb and Kevin.

If you want to know more about this brand new charity (but a ten-year old vision and ministry) find us at http://www.faith2share.net/

Too grounded to communicate?

I arrived late at our 'lunchtime theology' yesterday and had to eat my baked potato right under the nose of our speaker. Good job I know him well and he's such a decent bloke! Stephen Bevans, Catholic missiologist from the US with a great approach to thinking theologically about mission, was introducing his latest book An Introduction to Theology in Global Perspective. Get yourself a copy!

The thought which hooked me in his presentation and our discussion afterwards was about contextualised theology. We all agree that theology (at least Christian theology) has to be contextualised to make any sense. But then comes the problem. If my theology is so contextualised (expressed in my mother tongue, using my own cultural idioms, resonating with the life of my community, expressing my own inner deeply personal experience of divinity and life) then how on earth can anyone else be expected to make any sense of it! Now I undserstand why I struggle with Friedrich Schleiermacher - he was German! But more seriously this does open up a very interesting discussion about the inter-cultural dialogue of inculturated theologies.

On Pg. 187 Bevans writes, "To do theology from a global perspective, ironically, is to look to the local. ... We need ... the blossoming of theologies in every part of the world, in every historical situation , among every social group." The real challenge is then the "cross-pollination" of these theologies - in such a way as retains the integrety of each?

On the move - 190 million

Doing some research for a short presentation I am giving later this week I discovered an interesting, and challenging, fact. I bet you didn't know either. Apparently more than 3% of the world's population lives in a country different from the one in which they were born - that's 190 million people! Given that most people, even those living in situations made difficult through poverty or insecurity, prefer to stay put, it is quite staggering that three out of every hundred human beings is a migrant

Statistics are interesting but what I find really fascinating are the personal stories behind the statistics, and here we have a veritable gold mine of 190,000,000 stories! Some are real success stories, the African lad who loved football and now plays for Arsenal, the Russian entrepreneur living in a rather nice pad in Chelsea, and the nurse from Malawi who works in Sweden and sends home half her salary to support the family. Other stories need to be rated triple X, the Bangadeshi girl wobbling in high healed shoes and too much make-up on the streets of Mombay waiting for her next male customer, the illegal farm labourer hiding in a barn in Lincolnshire, and the political activist who had to seek asylum far from home

The statistic I have still not found, however, is how many of those 190 million women, men and children are Christians. How many million 'unintentional' missionaries do we have in the world? And, whatever number there are - and there are millions - who is supporting them, training them, praying for them? Will they ever feature in the historoes of mission? Some of those personal stories are great - the Ethiopian girl who reads Bible stories to her employer's children in Saudi Arabia, the Chinese student who became a Christian in Canada and now leads a church in China, and the Ghanian nurse who prays (as long as the law allows!) with her patients in Bristol

Living in a strange place is never easy - but those who do enrich our communities, deserve our friendship and must be protected when the world turns nasty.

Saving the earth

With a nephew who works in 'alternative energy' I have got used to following the various debates about on-shore and off-shore wind farms here in the UK. Personally I find those tall white windmills scattered across a grren hill side rather graceful and attractive but I also hear the arguments about noise, damage to the environment and danger to flocks of birds. But surely we need to do something to harness FREE energy.

Driving across Kerela, South India, recently I was amazed to see not one, five or twenty windmills but hundreds off them stretching out on both sides of the road for around 5 killometers. I'm not sure whether this is one of the largest wind farms built so far but it is definitely serious business. In a natural wind tunnel between mountains these white blades turn day and night generating electricity for the growing economy of India. In a strange way I thought these windmills mirrored the peoples of India - growing numbers, hard working, graceful and gaining strength from cooperative working. They also say something to Christians about the power which can be harnessed as we each open ourselves to the gentle breeze of God's spirit.

Children we love and abuse

I landed in Bangalore India this weekend in the midst of a festival weekend. As well as the local Hindu festival, Muslims were celebrating the end of Ramadan and Christians were using the long holiday weekend as an opportunity to celebrate 'Children's Day' in many of their churches. Within hours of landing I found myself in an impressive, growing, independent church preaching on the place of the child in mission.

India is full of people, and even more so full of children - literally hundreds of millions of them. The children who sat in front of me in church had adoring parents who, in good Indian fashion, are prepared to sacrifice much to see their children well educated and prepared for life, but as I spoke I was just as conscious of the children we had passed on the road side begging for food and those I had not seen whose bodies are abused for the gratification of adult lust. Children are vulnerable but they are also strong and have much to teach us about discipleship - open, trusting, humble and deep. I look forward to being inspired by the lives of other Indian children this coming week as I spend more time in this challenging but hopful country.

Spirits and Gods

It seems quite appropriate that a week before I fly out to South India I have just finished reading Michael Bergunder's excellent study of Pentecostalism in South India. At the end of the book he lists all 200+ people whom he interviewed as part of his study - after that much talking he must know something!

I was particularly interested in the ways that Pentecostalism has become contextualised within a Hindu context. Whereas in Africa Pentecostal churches sometimes appear as if they just landed last week from Pheonix Arizona, Indian Pentecostalism is very Indian - dare I say Hindu? Bergunder claims that, "the Pentecostals have taken over the demonology of popular Hinduism, with some slight differences", and "it is above all in their view of the causes of misfortune that south Indian Pentecostals come close to popular Hinduism". My years of pastoral ministry in Britain also suggest to me that it is when British Christians face misfortune that they too come fairly close to the gods of their pagan European religions.

Are we all really 'in the hands of the gods' or can we like suffering Job find a greater freedom in God?

Georgian Archbishops and Burundi

Do Baptists have bishops? Yes, most certainly, and in Georgia - an Archbishop! Archbishop Malkhaz Songulashvili (right) has been a good friend of mine for ten years or more now and leads a very interesting church in the former soviet republic. He was my dinner guest last Friday and presented me with a beautiful poster from the Baptist icon paining school in Tiblisi - surely that must be a first!

As we enjoyed coffee together after the meal, and having exchanged tales of mutual friends in Georgia, and news of last year's war with Russia, Malkhaz told me of his visit to Burundi. Yes, Burundi in central Arica. As a jaundiced Westerner I am used to people from Georgia, and Russia for that matter, frequenting the networks of donors in Germany, Britain and the US, but why Burundi? Malkhaz explained that despite the poverty of his own people, and the recent suffering brought by conflict with big brother Russia, they wanted to reach out to sisters and brothers in greater need in Africa. Now a formal link has been inaugurated between Baptist churches in Georgia and churches in Burundi and a regular flow of prayer, people and assistance has begun.

One more hopeful sign of joined up mission in God's amazing world.

Foggy landings

After a blog-free month its time to reflect on a few August encounters. I landed in Moscow twice last month - once late and once with cheering and applause. We flew from Samara (on the Volga river) in brilliant sunshine but arriving in Moscow the fog was definitely designed to test the landing skills of any Aeroflot pilot. Across the city transmission masts and blocks of flats stuck their heads above the fog but the airport was somewhat less visible. In faith the pilot headed down into the fog (where we could see absolutely nothing) and then lost his nerve and we shot back up into the sunshine. A short circuit, sight of the same transmission masts and a wave to the early morning risers in their sunny appartments, and then down we plunged again. Seconds later a roar of the engines and we were back in the sunshine again, fluffy clouds below! It took five more circuits (and a bottle of vodka?) before the pilot gained his nerve for a third attempt. I said my prayers - I don't think I was the only one! - and seconds later we made a perfect landing. Cause for cheering, applause and a standing ovation, except that seat belts make that difficult.

I had been visiting Russian friends who train church leaders in Samara, a rather God-forsaken city on the Volga river, and home to the Lada car factory. The city might do a little better if its officials were not so desperate to line their own pockets with roubles, but Russians are philosophical about what might be. It was sunny all week in Samara, but rather like Moscow at the end of the week, below the sunshine I could feel damp, cold mist - a spiritual malaise, an empty materialistic hunger. Churches don't grow fast these days - it costs to follow Jesus, and citizens are careful to avoid additional costs when life is tough.

I left Samara remembering the bright skies and the misty faces - and a couple who have given much to follow Jesus into Samar(i)a.

Defining youth

Interesting conversation tonight with Jec in the Philippines. We only met a couple of days ago through some work I'm doing for Edinburgh 2010. Jec is a 25 year old leader of Christian youth networks out there and we were talking (virtually you understand) about how the young people he knows can engage with a rather academic conversation about mission - to which I think they could add a lot.

However part of the conversation was about who are "youth". In Europe most people over 18 (16?) would be unhappy to be excluded from "adult" and spoken about as "the youth" whereas in India you can still be in the youth fellowship at 40! In fact in India, if I understand correctly, it has a lot to do with marital status - unmarried = youth; married = adult. Jec's interesting idea was that it all has to do with dependency. "As long as I am finacially dependent on my family I will be a youth" he said. As someone in his late 50s who is about to become more dependent on friends and family than I have been in the past that was encouraging news - I am about to become a youth once more! Roll on childhood!

Confused Spirits

My mobile rang just as I was leaving work. "Could you come and help me with an exorcism?" "When?" "Well as soon as possible, say 7pm.?" I don't get many of those calls (not being a specialist in exorcisms you'll understand) but when a brother priest asks you do go it's kind of hard to say 'no'.

Just before you get too excited, there were no stakes, large crucifixes, or hauting screams, just a troubled household - a world traveller come home to die, the live-in nurse and a dutiful son - seeking peace. My colleague and I broughts Biblical words of comfort, we said our prayers, we spinkled water, exchanges a few smiles and left. Walking home I began to wonder - what was there?, what have we done? and might my Nigerian colleague have done things quite differently? I believe in spirits - especially the one I call Father - and I know that they can be troublesome when we shut God out of the situation. But what really interested me was the cross-cultural dynamics of the pneumatology we talked through and prayed in that simple home tonight. The householder had spent much of his life in China, the nurse who first observed the 'phenomenon' was from the Philippines and the second disturbed nurse who prayed with us tonight was from Zimbabwe. Add to that a son from leafy Richmond and priests from Canada and Suffolk and you have some fairly interesting possibilities in terms of understanding the realities and challenges of the 'spirit world'.

But it worked - God understood, he cared, he spoke and his Spirit is truth.

Being known

I had one of those telephone calls today. You know, a pleasant sounding young man with a strong Indian accent introducing himself as Chris. "Mr. Oxbrow, I understand you are having some problems with your computer, unwanted messages and the like .... well let's see if I can help you with that. May I call you Mark?" Despite my lame protest, "No my computer is fine and I didn't call anyone for help", he presses on, "Now for security can you confirm you address is (and he quotes my full address) and tell me your date of birth." Wait a minute, who am I talking to? How does he know so much about me? It was of course a scam - put "Support on Click" into your browser if you want to know more. They didn't hook me, not this time!

How is it that sometimes it is very comforting when someone knows all about you (the doctor who remembers you from last year's visit, or the waiter who knows exactly where you like to sit) but sometimes its very scary. It worries me that Tesco know exactly what type of cheese I like and when I'm likely to buy more; and when the person I go to meet for the first time has 'researched' me on Google first I feel a little naked. I suppose it has to do with trust - who do I trust to know everything about me and still love me, still be good to me? That's why being known by God is such a pleasure, setting me free to be myself - as I really am.

They say "knowledge is power" and so it is for the potential scam merchant, but for God "knowledge is love".

Single - Crime or Sickness?

It happened again today. I was standing in the sunshine and someone who I have known through work for some time said, "How are the family?". "I'm single" I remind her, "Oh, I'm so very sorry" comes the automatic reply! I want to reply, "I'm not sorry at all, in fact I rather enjoy it" but I chicken out and change the subject.

It's much more fun of course in Asia where a 'confession' of singleness instantly invites well meaning offers of help to find a "beautiful lady", who often turns out to be a relative not-yet-married-off. I have of course been tempted to accept the offers of help and instantly arrange a beauty (in the spiritual sense of course!) parade with suitable negotiations around 'husband price' - but then chickened out because of the consequences for the poor young (or not-so-young) women involved. Seriously though, the automatic "I'm so sorry" response does seem to suggest a cultural unease with singleness. Is it that us 'singles' still remain a competitive threat? Or does it suggest a deeper inner fear of 'aloneness' with which many struggle. For myself, I thought I was just doing my small part of help prevent population explosion!

Is, perhaps, the real issue for me (otherwise why did I write this?) as well as you that we struggle with those who are different from us - and yet apparently fulfilled, happy in the life God has given them?

Child, Credo, Camp

It's August, its cold and raining, the kids are on holiday - so let's go camping - or better still let's send the kids off to camp while we have a quiet time back home. Each summer, especially in the US, but also across Europe and elsewhere thousands of children are given a great holiday, lots of adventure, fun and teaching about faith, often by Christian volunteers who give up weeks of their anual leave to look after other people's offspring.

This last week has been the week for banning camps. In Britain several Christian groups have raises the alarm about the country's first Atheist summer camp for children between 8 and 17 whilst in Uzbekistan the government have suceeded in closing a camp run by the Baptist Association of Uzbekistan, leaving the leaders of the Association facing massive fines. So if Athiest can teach their 'faith' to children as young as eight in Britain why cannot Baptists do the same in Uzbekistan? Or to ask the question more provactively, if Christians in Britain (a minority religious group) can object to an Atheist camp why cannot Muslims in Uzbekistan (a majority religious group) object to a Christian camp in their country? The real question of course is much deeper. To my mind the issue is to what degree children - at eight or eighteen - should be exposed to the competing truth claims and religious convictions of adults. We rightly protect children from pornography - should be also protect them from atheism - and theism? Perhaps to focus on 'protection' is to begin in the wrong place. Would these difficult questions be more easily addressed if we focused rather on 'nourishment' and 'healthy development' rather than 'protection'? As Christians work with children we need to constantly ask ourselves, is my 'faith sharing' enabling this child to be nourished and grow in healthy ways, to explore and discover their own place in God's world, in His love?

Hope in a dark place

It was raining, the streets were grey, and the hotel buffet was closed so he had to head across the road to the bistro pub to find something to eat. Belfast is not the most welcoming place in the rain but the steak pie was good. A colleague and I had been hanging around the bus station to meet a man we didn't know from Dublin, but the waiting was worth while. Thankfully the first bearded stranger I approached turned out to be our contact - I didn't want to get arrested for harassing strangers!

Mr. X had agreed to meet us to tell us about opportunities in North Korea. For decades now the northern part of this Asian peninsular, sandwiched between the economic miracle of South Korea and the emergent power of China, has been a very dark place. Closed to the outside world, stricken by hunger and disease, and with a population in fear of their rulers, North Korea stands as a challenge to freedom, democracy and justice. Last week, in rainy Belfast, however we heard of borders that are permeable (with care), Chinese, Russian and Korean ‘visitors’ who bring hope, and a vision for change. Small beginnings, a kindergarten for deprived children, a bakery for hungry workers, and a few farm implements to ease the life of rural peasants – all done in the name of Jesus, who longs to be a brother to each North Korean. Quietly, underground, Jesus promised the mustard seed will grow. Quietly rays of hope are creeping across the borders of one of the darkest places on earth.

Cow thief baptised

I remember singing in Sunday School about the man who bought a wife and married a cow (or was it the other way round?) and so had no time for God's kingdom - see Luke 14:19,20 - but this week I heard about a man who spent 12 years in prison for stealing a cow and then last month was baptised - in a prison bucket. The story comes from a Nepali colleague who conducted the baptism, of eleven prisoners in total, in Tansen prison two weeks ago.

The ironic thing is that if the man had been baptised twelve years ago (instead of stealing the cow!) he would not have been facing a prison sentence. No worse, he and my friend who baptised him would have been facing the death penalty! Praise God, a lot has changed in twelve years in Nepal. From a closed Hindu kingdom in which baptism was illegal it has become an open 'secular' state where prison governers welcome Christian ministry and the church growth rate is one of the fastest in the world. Wow, what a change. Through the Faith2Share network we are now seeing Nepalis popping up all over the place in world mission. And they are great people to work with!

When Youthwork means youth work

Great news from Church Army Africa - a Faith2Share movement - this week. More Kenyan youth now find themselves with employment and hope following the establishment of dozens of new micro-enterprises around the country.

Church youth work is always a challenge - who will do it? - what shall we do? - what do young people want anyway? - what relevance does faith have for the socially engaged teenager or the depressed 20 something? Young people in Kenya represent 75% of the population and many of them face a host of social and economic challenges including unemployment, crime, corruption, tribalism and HIV/AIDS, not to mention their youthful struggle with identity. Working with CMS Africa, Church Army Africa recently started a Youth for Work programme which recognises that when you are young in Kenya gospel = work, a opportunity to contribute to society, to be valued, to have dignity and to know yourself as a daughter or son of the creative God. Sounds like a great mission venture to me. Well done Church Army Africa.

Blood on the doorposts

This week has been a painful week for many with whom I work. Words like 'betrayal', 'blood' and 'death' have been muttered. At times it felt like Golgotha but of course it was only a faint hazzy shaddow of that history changing moment suspended in God's eternal time.

Traditional mission agencies (like those we seek to serve through Faith2Share) rely on regular giving and when recession hits, incomes shrink, jobs are 'retrenched' or 'restructured' and people suffer. In a close community that suffering is corporate and so it should be. We sit and listen, mop up spilt emotions, and try to understand ... and feel guilty that it was not us. When blood mixed with tears on Golgotha worlds were about to change (as indeed when blood was spashed on doorposts in pre-Exodus Egypt), and I sit here tonight wondering whether our world might also change. Of course it will, but in what ways?, how dramatically?, and what will survive or be lost? I have felt for some time that the hegenomy of professional mission agencies (which of course was only ever an imagined hegenomy! - don't we love to fool ourselves) cannot go on. Mission is changing, God is doing new things, and we must be ready. Whether you call them 'involuntary missionaries', 'non-professional missionaries', 'buisionaries', or just 'God's people living for him', mission is for all children, women and men and we may well find that 'the business of mission' will soon 'employ' very few of us. But none of the excitement of the new ( and it is exciting) takes away the reality of the pain right now - it only offers hope.

Life beyond Wimbledon

Do I recall there was once a war in Sri Lanka? Now that Wimbledon has started in Britain my TV, and sadly my consiousness, seem to have been taken over by tennis and the rest of life is fast disappearing into the mists of time. That was until the report arrived on my desk this morning from Bishop Kumara in Sri Lanka.

Christians are a small minority in this south Asian state, often trampled upon by their Buddhist and Hindu neighbours but when, in May, thousands fled their homes in the north of the island, poor Christian communities were determined to help - to do what Jesus would have done, to weep with the bereaved, bind up wounds, feed hungry children, and sit silently with the traumatised. Although help did eventually come from outside, Bishop Kumar, reports that at least 50% of the food and clothing distributed came from parishes and congregations within the diocese. Families gave up plates and shoes so that others could eat and walk. The suffering will go on for years in this beautiful country, just as there are still many (in the same communities) recovering from the Tsunami. Local Christians will continue to serve them long after the aid agencies leave - they will do so because that's what Jesus does.

I think Jesus would also enjoy Wimbledon, but we must not let the one eclipse the other.

Virtually Gathered - Part 2

My last post seems to have generated a little discussion. One friend wrote, "what do we mean by "gather"? Is simply sharing a physical place really "gathering"? Some of the relationships I have with people I know but have never met physically are deeper, stronger, more honest and open etc. than many with whom I have shared a church building on a weekly basis. ... Couldn't "gathering" be far less about place and far more about spirit, emotion, sharing and participation? Is even the language a sign that we are still too strongly defined by Greek/Modernist thinking about the cosmos? The "space" which is important surely is the space between people - that which enables relational waves to flow not the containing space we gather in?"

"Space between people" is what allows for the possibility of relationship. I have always thought that the space between Father, Son and Spirit is important because it gives birth to relationship and it is relationship which makes the Trinity work and at the same time creates a re-creative space for us mere mortals to enter into.

I like the idea of 'gathering' being about relationship rather than place but what about 'incarnation'. If having a body, physicality, was so important for Jesus (living in Palestine and risen from the dead) then where do we place this physicality in 'virtual church'?