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)? 

The Proactive Pastor

This is Pastor Felix of "Those who Trust in the Lord Church" in Montana (Western Cape, South Africa).

In June they are having a mission event hosting a speaker from Nigeria.  Big stuff.  Big expectations.

But Pastor Felix knows that most big events just make everyone already in the church feel excited for a few days and proud that they have done something important.  Then, it is business as usual.

Enter "Discipling Nations" (see post from 19 January).

Pastor Felix is also on the board of Discipling Nations (now you can see how forward-looking he is).  So he called Martin in to have a conflab, becasue Martin is the chair while Willem is on sabbatical.

The upshot?


A Storyboard Street Art course will run 22-23 July to enable the members of  "Those who Trust in the Lord Church" to get out onto the streets with the good news in a form people are able to receive.  Told in a way that allows people to move off with a story in their hearts which can speak to them until they are ready to find out more.

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

the outside people ...

The high-end street vendors.

We call ourselves "outsiders" because we try to go with Jesus to where people are outside church.  We pray; we are present; we listen; we connect.  But on our beat are many people who are not just outside of church (though many of them belong to churches), they are literally outside in the weather every day.
There are others, but I am thinking of the street vendors: people making a go of life, making a living by selling goods and services 'in the weather'.

In our urban hub there are upmarket, middle-market and downmarket vendor spots.  Some have quite sophisticated permanent shelters (sanitised for the rich, you know); some have created their own very clever shelters to erect where they hire a spot on the pavement; some just squat next to the passing people with their wares on a cloth on the ground.

Street vendors with permanent stalls.

But all of them share several things that challenge me as I pray for them.

1. They create and pack up their entire shop every single day.  I admire them for this alone, especially as the displays are often so beautifully arranged and the display methods so innovative.
2. They are out there in the heat and cold and the dry and wet.  A few stay at home when it is cold and wet, but most are there whatever the weather.  Their sales are deeply affected by the weather, but every possible sale is so important.
3. There is a mobility among them.  On Sundays many don't open, and those that do often move into a better spot for the day.  New stalls open and close frequently.  (Though this is so true inside the centres at the moment too!)  What exactly a stall sells is very variable as the vendor tries to follow their market and adapt to the moment.  Sunglasses in summer, beanies in winter, and team caps when there is a sports event!

We ask God to give these hard-working men and women strength for the task that they face each day.

We ask that their wares will sell well so that they have enough to cover their needs.

We pray for God's protection over them as they sell in such vulnerable places.

We long for God to touch their lives so that they know Jesus and walk with him.  We pray that those who already have a vibrant faith are able to live godly lives and reach out to their neighbouring vendors with the good news.  

It is too easy to walk past without praying.  It is difficult to make the effort to engage with the people who run the stalls.  I don't naturally buy on the street, but if I care about these people I must.

Our church (Claremont Methodist) has a current project to pray for the businesses of the Claremont Urban Hub.  We include the informal traders in this and every couple of weeks we write up one of the stalls for prayer.  

Collage

Settling into our new half-house home has been good.  We love being on hand for Martin's mom and dad.  We think Mom has adjusted to having a smaller space and people so invasively close; she definitely enjoys having someone on hand and a little help with some of life's responsibilities.  We want to make sure she gets to church every second week while someone stays with Dad.  We need wisdom when to help and when to leave.

In December I (Lesley) had the privilege of going to a big Engineering Education Forum in Dubai where I received an award in memory of my brother Duncan and his awesome contribution to the field.

Martin's latest leisure project is puppet creation.  One of his work projects is his PhD - he has completed his pilot study and is ready to interview a large number of Methodist ministers.

Lesley's latest "leisure" project is masters studies.  This means giving up painting and writing for now!

Lesley still works at UCT part time.
Martin teaches at three (sometimes four) different theological organisations.
We work on our "Outsiders - Urban Spiritual Life" project which is integrating more into the life of Claremont Methodist Church again.

Joanna and Adam live next door and we do a lot of community living.
Charis lives in the UK and has had a very hard year.

Hopefully I will be better about news ...

a post about posters

Long ago, academics gave learned lectures to small groups of like-minded people.  Then they also started publishing the lectures as collections of 'papers' in journals.  They began to have large conferences, which were like live journals.  Then they realised that there is too much going on for it all to be presented to huge plenary sessions at the conferences, so they started having elective sessions, where everyone divided up for smaller presentations.  Now, they also have 'posters': one A1 with pictures, headings and a small amount of text with 5 minutes of talking. 

So, one project in the Theology of Mission course is a poster on a significant figure in the history of mission.  The list they have to choose from contains the names of about 50 men and women who lived and sorked all over the world during the last two millenia.  These are people like Ulfalas who re-evangelised the pagan Italians, or Matteus Ricci who wrote one of the classic Chinese essays.

 These people form nodes in the time-space matrix (vs time-line) of Christian history.  The class becomes excited as they hear the stories from each other.

Right Now ... Graffiti and Sudan

Graffiti artists are a tribe ... you've probably never thought of that, unless you are an anthropologist or were at a church youth group in Bellville last night!
Martin is the speaker for a mission weekend, involving a total of six sessions (four today) ...

If you were to attend, you would find out that it is quite possible that the Irish were originally told about Jesus by Berber Africans!  SO ... a Irish missionary telling a Berber about Jesus in North Africa today would be risking their life to give back what was given 16 centuries ago!

You would also be treated to the South Sudan National Anthem ... a new song for an ancient country, with a history of people following Jesus longer than most European countries!

Pray for Martin to communicate lovingly and effectively God's heart for the people of his world!

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.

Martin's Crazy Days

Martin has just finished a marathon of marking exam papers and essays.  BI courses complete!
He collects his final CI essays this afternoon.
He has been preparing a course for BI for next semester ... 'Evangelism'.  He is amped to teach it, but starting a course you have never taught before is a major undertaking.  He has found some fun stuff on how not to do it; up YouTube!

He is just busy finalising his prep for running his street-art-and-talking workshop - happening for the third time over the mountain pass in Villiersdorp.  Tomorrow morning will see five paintings happening on the village main road.

Then he will drive post haste back to the Cape Flats to run a seminar on 'Becoming a Life-Long-Learner' for the lay preachers in our group of churches ... tomorrow afternoon.  He will finish off that preparation tonight at bed-time.

Meantime, we are hoping to leave on Sunday for a long-desired holiday.  Martin was really tired before last week, so you can imagine that he will be a basket case by Sunday!  Also that some prayer for all this would be essential.