Soros on Storms

It was encouraging today to hear George Soros, he of a few pence, reminding us that those who will suffer most from the current economic storm are not those who started the storm, but rather the poorest occupants of our planet who don't even know what a sub-prime mortgage or a government bond might be. It reminded me of the butterfly which is supposed to flap its wings in Malaysia and cause a hurrican in Mexico. As world leaders go into their G20 meetings this week Soros' reminder of who bears the brunt of a global economic storm is well timed. Bob, a friend of mine prompted a similar thought in my mind as we looked at Mark 4:35-41 together this afternoon. I must have read that story of Jesus ending the storm (a real one, not an economic one) a hundred times before but I never noticed before that "there were also other boats with him". Bob's thought was, "What did the people in the other boats think when the storm suddenly finished?" Sometimes God (in Jesus in this case) works unknown in our world. The question I am wrestling with now is, "what will it take for God to finish our economic storm so as to bring relief to the frighted people in the 'other boats' - the poor and powerless of our world?"

Male-female power imballance fuels HIV/AIDS

The latest rumour from Tear Fund UK, sadly, is that there are more redundancies on the way as they, like lots of us, seek to 'restructure' and survive in a challenging global market. But looking on the bright side, I just discovered a great resource they released this month. Their case study of HIV/AIDS in Zimbabwe and Burkina Faso Gender, HIV and the Church, has some provocative things to say about the power equation between African (only African?) men and women and the role of traditional belief structures, even in churches, in fostering the spread of HIV. Not a long read and there's plenty of pictures, so worth downloading.

iServe Africa

We had a great telephone conference call for most of the Faith2Share leaders this morning. It meant that Steve (New Zealand) had to stay up until after midnight and Robb, Geoff and Stewart (US/Canada) were up at 6.00am. but for us in the UK it wasn't too tough! We prayed together and did some good vision sharing. Of course many of us, as mission leaders, face the pressures of the economic downturn (did I mean crash?) but the real energy was reserved for the discussion of emerging mission movements around the world. Duncan, he of Mission Together Africa in Nairobi, reminded us that their new programme iServe Africa is now underway and has a prayer event on 5 April. iServe Africa is a leadership development and discipleship programme for fresh African graduates who are keen to serve as apprentices in churches, mission agencies and other Christian oraganisations. Well done Duncan and travel well to Germsny with the team next month. (They're going to Mission Net.)

Vulnerability in Mission

With a very interesting group of people from around the world, I'm currently working on some research that might see the light of day next year - at the Edinburgh 2010 Mission Conference. The idea is to look at how people get motivated for and caught up in Christian mission - how they go about it. One of the issues we were talking (well, virtual talking) through yesterday was vulnerability in mission. Jesus was quite vulnerable at times (how else did he get crucified?) and Paul has quite a lot to say about vulnerability, and yet Christians often go about mission in quite powerful ways - linked in with colonialisation, globalising materialism, or 'power evangelism'. I had a quite challenging/difficult meeting last week with a Brit. who is absolutely committed to vulnerable mission - living simply, using local resources, speaking the local language, having no more power than any local person - in western Kenya. Jim really works hard at this 'being vulnerable' but its not easy. His skin colour alone manks him out as one who has access to those with financial resources and power even if he does not have them himself. I also found out about him on the internet and met him in Wantage, UK. No one else from his village in Kenya has a web presence or flies to the UK! So what does 'vulnerability' mean in terms of mission? I'm still wrestling with that one.

A sixth mark of mission?

Over the past few years many of us have got used to Five Marks of Mission but now someone wants to add another! Well, to be precise a whole bunch of people think its a good idea. It started in Canada last year but now there's a real grownd swell. The idea is to recognise that peace making, conflict resolution and reconciliation are all essential 'marks' of God's mission amongst us. The context of our world, and don't forget the church itself!, makes it obvious enough that we need peace, ways of dealing with conflict, and ministries of reconciliation - witness Iraq, Sudan, Sri Lanka and your local church - but is this 'mission'? Personally I am amazed none of us thought of this before. If God does anything, he makes peace. Saint Paul used to talk of Christians as 'ambassadors of reconciliation' and Billy Graham wrote about finding faith as "Peace with God". There will be those who say, "How can we have six marks of mission when everyone knows there are five?", but personally I'm glad we can add to the list and in so doing enrich our understanding of mission. I'm glad the Canadians have reminded us of this missing mark.

Journeying Backwards

I was asked today where my blog name comes from. Well you can blame Tom Wright - the one who is bishop of Durham. I could say that its all about soteriology being Christocentrically rooted in eschatology but that really doesn't help! Perhaps we could say instead that Christianity makes much more sense if you read history backwards - that us Christians are people of hope and that we are orientated towards the future because that's where we will discover who God really is and who we, in consequence, are. Help, that doesn't sound much clearer either. Why don't you just read Bishop Tom - he really understands it, and so did I after I read him. It's all in Surprised by Hope, Tom Wright SPCK 2007

So ...... inspired by Tom, I'm now walking backwards (guided by the historic events of Jesus and his church) towards all the things I dare hope for because of Jesus. And as I go that hope is daily transfigured (changed and strengthened) into something more certain. You must see - that's quite exciting! Hence the blog name.

EAT Lunch

I wasn't expecting such a good lunch today at EAT in Baker Street. Well, the food was actually not that good - overpriced and somewhat bland - but the conversation was great. A colleague asked me to meet a student from London School of Theology who wanted to talk with someone about partnerships in mission and as I was in London destined for another meeting - which is another story! - I agreed to meet Lanri. I must admit I was expecting just another student looking for a quick way to get someone else to write their asignment, I've had plenty of those meetings, but I was wrong. It turned out that Lanri is a mature student, hails from Lagos, Nigeria, and is really passionate about partnerships in mission. I can't believe it, but he tells me he is one of only two students at LST majoring in mission - what has become of LST? We had a great hour or so sharing passions and now Faith2Share is destined to become the case study in Lanri's disertation. That's good, but better still, I was encouraged to find another African brother who really believes we can build kingdom partnerships. Perhaps it was worth the £3.95 sandwich after all!