Dodging Charlie

It seems I have been almost meeting Charlie for fifteen years and more but never seen him until he sat in my living room this evening. You know what it's like ... "Oh, you know X?", "Yes I worked with him in Russia in '92," "That was about the time we started supporting BLTC", "BLTC in Krasnodar? - I was on its Board!", "and I don't suppose you ever knew Y", "Of course I did, he's right here in Oxford now you know." etc. etc. I turns out we might have met last year in Hungary except Charlie was sick and didn't make it to the conference. Anyway, after 15 years of 'near misses' we had a great evening tonight discovering that we have actually beeen in the same ministry, supporting the same people, learning the same lessons, and trying to be obedient to the same Father all these years. Charlie is American and Baptist (I can just about forgive him that!) but shares the same passion for Europe becoming a place where people of so many different backgrounds can discover that becoming a disciple of Jesus is one 'heaven' of an adventure.

When Charlie eventually went to bed I found myself sitting and wondsering how many other unseen Charlies there were out there - employed by the same Lord, in the same ministry, in many of the same places as me, but totally unknown. I wonder. ... I wonder which one will I bump into next?

Pilgrim principle

I constantly go back to Andrew Walls - thank's Andrew - and get new inspiration for real mission. In a world full of culture-attuned mission methodology ('Purpose driven', 'Seeker friendly', and 'People Group' focused) it's good to be reminded that faith can also be counter-cultural. Walls writes,

Not only does God in Christ take people as they are: He takes them in order to transform them into what He wants them to be. Along with the indigenising principle which makes his faith a place to feel at home, the Christian inherits the pilgrim principle, which whispers to him that he has no abiding city and warns him that to be faithful to Christ will put him out of step with his society; for that society never existed, in East or West, ancient time or modern, which could absorb the word of Christ painlessly into its system. (Andrew Walls Missionary Movement in Christian History Pg. 8)

Differently together

Today I heard from two friends (one an ex-girl friend I haven't heard from for 30 years!), sat in the sun and read a book, and then scanned some scary emails from Pakistan. Strangely they all linked together - is it a plot? A mission director friend wrote from Malaysia to say he had just finished his sabbatical and had been working on a 'theology of ethnicity'. Marion wrote "We Judge!!... but whom do we stand next too ??.. God knows!!.. oh yes he does!!!!... I shared a hymn sheet with a street cleaner, he was black from head to toe!! he held out his sheet to share with me... and began to sing.. i was humbled!!... ashamed!! A voice of an angel!!!! he sang every word with passion!!! and then he carried on cleaning the streets". My book (the sun was great) provided a resounding renunciation of McGavran's 'homogeneous people group' approach to mission and rekindled in me the excitement of the multi-ethnic, multi-everything church. And Pakistan? Well do I have to say anything? ... ethnicity rules! What I really want to know is how we can actually enhance ethnicity, as a contribution to the enrichment of humanity rather than as a rejection of 'the other'. Paul you really do need to write up your sabbatical study. If Christians could really crack this 'difference is what holds us together' stuff then we really would be on to something - perhaps even in the Swat Valley (Pakistan).

Oh, the book I was reading was Eckhard Schnabel's Paul the Missionary - and its not all as good at this afternoon's few pages!