5 to midnight and counting

Martin is tense.  Very tense.

His PhD thesis must be ready for final approval by his supervisor, also known as a promoter, by 15 November 2017.  Then it must be printed and bound and handed in by 30 November 2017.

 Martin started writing in earnest in January and has kept up a demanding writing schedule since then.  He is in the tidy-up-and-finish-off phase now with a chapter a week on the table.  I get requests for calculation of % done (25 pages of 58, this instant)!

Every now and then a whole paragraph must be relegated to footnotes.  Occasionally a small section needs to be written or rewritten now that everything is in place.   Mostly it is finding the reference behind the [cit] which was left as a marker in the previous draft! 
The book situation in the house is pretty dire!

Whilst navigating these dark tunnels, Martin’s trusty PhD computer went into a coma and was diagnosed dead-on-arrival at the computer shop.  This event nearly sent Martin over the brink into some unknown place of trauma in spite of full (multiple) backups!  However, Charis came to the rescue with her laptop, which is similar enough to feel familiar!

The background tension is the potential hostility of theological faculty to the subject of evangelism.  This will result in increased panic when we get near the viva, but we won’t go there now!

Ultimately, can God use this to touch (the Methodist part of) his church (in South Africa)? 

Adventure into the Bible

This is what I call inductive Bible Study.
Every time I am asked to train people in facilitating this sort of group Bible Study I try to improve the way I present it.  This is my latest diagram of the process:

Those who know this method will see that I have renamed most of the steps.  I also added a concrete action step a number of years ago.  I also try to impress on people that, although it must be done in an order, it is non-linear in the sense that everything refers back to the passage.

I am feeling happy with the new words!

Why this iteration now?  Last week Wednesday I was doing a seminar for a group of new small group leaders at out church - Claremont Methodist.  This week I will be workshoping with the same group.  It is quite difficult to help people get enough of an idea of how it works in a total of 2 hours, but ... I do my best.

Reorientating ... which way now?

So ... with most of his formal college teaching off the agenda, what will Martin do instead?

For a number of years now he has been working with a group of people helping to found "Discipling Nations", the brain-child of a good friend, Willem Conradie.

They offer a suite of franchised courses (plus some offerings of their own) for people to study in their churches.  Their key vision is to offer quality missions and missiology courses at a grassroots level.  They want training to be available to people who can't afford college, or who don't have enough formal education to qualify for entrance.

As they work with groups in churches they hope to train not only people to go, but people who will send.  They hope to inspire people to reach across barriers where they are as well as to get involved in other places where they are needed.

In 2014 Martin piloted a Discipling Nations "home-grown" course which he developed to fill a need that they identified.  He has also slowly been collecting the lectures that various members of the team give, and creating the visual packages which will make them more effective and enable others to teach them.  This work has been stalled for a year.

Part of the vision for this year is that he will have time to make this happen in 2016.

You can check Disciplining Nations out here: http://www.disciplingnations.org.za

Reorientating ... again!

Martin has been teaching various combinations of missions and missiology classes as a part time lecturer for about 8 years now.  This hasn't been exactly how he imagined his "second half".  He had expected to be still in Thailand church planting.  Then he had hoped to be on faculty at a Bible College participating fully in college life and decisions.  Then he realised that this part time work was his work for now.

This was the result of three things:  

1.     Bible colleges in South Africa need to be committed to racial transformation.

2.     Bible colleges are cash-strapped and cannot not afford a large full time faculty.

3.     Bible colleges everywhere tend to marginalise mission.

We wholly support the first of these.  We struggle to understand why God allows the second.  We feel sad about the third.

David Bosch, in his book "Transforming Mission" reminds us that mission is nearly always marginalised by the church as a whole, and that the worst mistakes (and sin) in mission have happened when it has not been in that challenging 'edge space'.  That encourages us.

But.

Ever since Martin started on this strange borderland existence, the mission and missiology courses at both of the colleges where he serves have gradually eroded.  

One of the colleges, which started about 50 years ago as a missions college, is no longer a Bible College, but a liberal arts college with an increasingly minor theology stream.  This year he has no courses there in the first semester, and none in the second either.

At the other college, one of the two first semester courses he used to teach has been cut.  He will be teaching the other, but we have no idea about the second semester courses.

... The next blog will be about what is happening instead, but losing this outlet is psychologically challenging.  

Martin is having to reimagine his life at this point.

Plus, we feel helpless about the lack of availability of training for missions and in missiological thinking.

Right through the BIble

... in about 75 minutes!  

Trying to help everyone make sense of each bit as they read it.

installation as interactive performance art

As you know if you have read our "pages" (see the tabs above this post), we use art of most sorts in most aspects of what we do!  If you know us, you will have experienced the irregularity that this causes!  One of the places we are committed to using art is on the street in our "outsiders" ministry. 

Usually this is sub-fusc; Martin sits somewhere drawing, Lesley writes a vignette in the coffee shop.  Sometimes all that 'happens' is that we connect more deeply with the city and its people because we have been listening differently.  Occasionally the art leads to conversation with a passer-by, although we never know what God does with that.

Every now and then, we plan a creative event, bigger and more directed at communicating with the people in the urban hub.  We are planning one for 29 October and there's lots to do before then.

The Pavement and trees!

This is to be and installation in the visual-art-sense, but with a performance twist.
The basis is a 'live' display on chains hung from a rope strung between trees on a pavement. 
This will be a small display to keep down costs and make it easy for few people to manage.  It will not be big enough to be visible for people in passing cars.  We rely on a steady stream of pedestrians, and have tried to choose our 'venue' accordingly!
Chains will carry the words (the letters hung vertically): LOVE, JOY, PEACE, PATIENCE, KINDNESS, GENTLENESS, FAITHFULNESS, GOODNESS and SELF-CONTROL. 

A poster will declare: 

FREE TO LIVE. 

There will be chains which start off empty, and are gradually filled with interesting things - feathers, corks, beads, bells, and so on - people who come past will be invited to add something.

note: in this concoction chains are not used for metaphorical significance, but because they hang well, are easy to hang things from and look professional

You might have noticed that this all tries to reflect Galatians 5.

Join us if you'd like some fun.  Pray if you remember.

before the 'day' starts

I was here very early this morning.  I saw 'my' coffee shop still curled up asleep.  I watched it stretch and yawn, wash and dress, and start the day.

I saw the supermarket trolleys emerge from the storeroom in a long mobile train ... amazing how they can take a corner, and astonishing how much noise a hundred trolleys makes on a tiled floor! 

I was here to pray.  

Meanwhile my sister wake up 1000km away to this.  God's peace made visible. 

But his peace is everywhere - even behind the counter where the guys are frantically washing mugs, wiping surfaces, steaming milk, "esspressing" coffee, warming muffins, taking orders and generally working like crazy!!

How amazing.

preaching tomorrow

After nearly a year without a service, I am preaching tomorrow evening at Claremont Methodist Church.  I am excited (and a little more nervous than usual).  The passage set is from Matthew 14 - involving a boat, lots of wind and water, and Jesus.

I found this awesome (in the everyday sense of this overworked word!) picture of the remains of a boat which was actually in use about the time of Jesus!  It was buried in the ooze at the bottom of Lake Galilee, and thus preserved.  When they dug it up in 1983 they had to work at speed as it started to decompose as soon as exposed to atmosphere.  Then it spent seven years submerged in a chemical bath before it was safe to display it!

The internet is horrible for some things, but how special to be able to find this!  I had much more trouble trying to find out how fast people row in ordinary boats, and ended up having to make assumptions and do calculations, but I think I have a reasonable estimate.

That is only background though, there to help it come alive for people.  The important thing is: Have I understood the passage?  Have I listened to God?

Now to preach it...
            ...and pray for God to use it.

Serve Invisibly

Jesus talks a lot about hiddenness. 

There is the seed that is planted, and grows invisibly. 

There are the servants who serve well even when the boss is away.

Treasure, yeast, shepherds, giving, prayer, fasting ...

and of course sparrows, seen by the Father, unseen by people.

 

Okay ... I KNOW it's a Cape Robin, not a sparrow! 

We have grown into a strong sense of the high value of invisible service, hidden ministry.  Something about the way God has chosen to use us demands the willingness to do things that look as if they don't count, that seem to have no result.  This can be tough going!  It means getting our sense of worth from seeking God, not from doing great deeds for him. (As if he needs me to do anything for him anyway!)  It means finding people to support us who can see the invisible.  It means learning to value things that we have been taught are of no value. 

We know that this doesn't apply to everything, nor to every ministry, but we know just as truly that this is how we must live and work. 

Serve People

People are more important than plans.

In fact:

People are the plan.

A chat on the steps

We are programmed by everything we've ever been taught to achieve.  We have been brainwashed effectively to know that in order to achieve we must have a plan.  So far so good.

The trouble is, it seems that sometimes (maybe even often) God isn't very interested in our plans.  Now we aren't saying this is true for everyone, and we really do value the training we've had in plan-making.  We are just saying that we don't get to use it very often in the normal, expected way. 

People in the house

People don't fit.  We are awkward shapes in the jigsaw puzzle of life, leaving blank spaces and sudden transitions away from the picture everyone else is building.  No plan we have ever made has happened: almost always because of people. But then, God sends us to people, God brings people to us.

People in the garden

So we have found that one value we need if we are to serve God in the way he wants us to is the people one.  Jesus was constantly stopping for individuals.  He ate lunch with them; he had long conversations with them (even if they weren't 'stratigic' people); he cuddled the babies and took his disciples fishing.

So, there are days when we don't get anything done, but somehow those are the days when we go to sleep with our hearts full of people, carrying joys and sorrows, experiencing hopes and fears.  We think that maybe those are the days when our chaotic lives are most touched by God.