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.

living water?

Martin labels the spring water, bottled at source in Newlands!

Andrew collects his tlc, fruit and water.

Spring water was one of the things we offered to passers by at Earth Dance.  For some it was very helpful as they had only brought liquids with additives.  For some it went deeper - one friend called it "holy" water, and lay on the ground to let it pour straight into his mouth every time he came past.

new moonlighting

Okay ... so where does an ad-film agency find an older, bearded puppeteer in Cape Town?  From Artee Partees (Kirsty Paxton) of course, who just happen to "have" (sort of) Martin!

So Martin goes along with a suitcase full of puppets, including Captain Seaweed and Able (Lesley's coke-can puppet).  The film-dudes are from Belgium and are selling suitcases.  They like Martin (because he is funny and looks Belgian and has a huge beard at the moment); they like Able too, but htey can't have another product in their ad ... so 

Martin spends they first few days of a one week holiday having enormous fun making a puppet and being filmed.  Also not really getting rest, but ...  

entranced ...

hundreds of tents, peg to peg

 thousands of people, shoulder to shoulder

 noise, light, noise, colour, noise, substances ripe for abuse, noise

some rather nice music

and us

Andrew went to shower.  

One of the young men in the bathroom, incredulous: "Are you brushing your teeth?"

Andrew, taken aback: "Well, yes."

Silence

Young man: "Ur.  Could I have some toothpaste on my finger?"

Several others:  "And me!"

This is ministry.

more when we get pictures from the proper photographers ...

Hey! January happened already

We preached at churches: Claremont, Lansdowne, Hanover Park, Ottery, Wynberg ... bottom line, God serves us, strangers to his grace, so we in turn should serve strangers. Martin gave a paper at a Missiological conference in Pretoria....bottom line, Academics should spend some of their time working with those "strangers" who cannot qualify to attend their universities. And Martin got official training to facilitate a grass roots mission training program (Kairos)... bottom line, he can now help his friend Willem Conradie to train people under the university radar in - guess what - serving strangers! A keynote January if ever there was!


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Charis is soldiering on...although contracting glandular fever was a disaster. She has spent an exhausted month, although she has managed also to work on writing a humorous play which is already in production for performance later this year. And she worked on another film shoot for a student movie-maker. She is getting requests for more gigs but thinks that unless they are actual friends they ought to pay her more than pizza.

And Lesley and Martin turned 52 and 53. We had a big party with our Monday crowd on Lesley's birthday, and a small family dinner on Wednesday. And bought each other some books and framing materials :)

Serve by Prayer

To pray is to act.

All other actions should arise from prayer.

Please note:  As with all our sharing about the things behind what we do and how we do it, we are not saying that this is how all Christians should work.  We are telling you what we understand of how God has asked US to work!
We are challenged constantly by this aspect of the way God has asked us to serve.  It is counter-intuitive like so much of the Christian life; waiting for ideas and choices to emerge from prayer is different.  Building a life of prayer is one of the hardest things we do; but without this we are not serving in the way God asks us to serve. 

This is much more than praying about choices or activities. 

This is praying as a choice; praying as the primary activity; praying as life and work. 

This street theatre, Easter 2009, was this direct result of prayer.

I am sure you can see the issues rolling in like breakers in a storm.  When, why, how, what, where ... does the prayer happen?  How do you get around to other things?  Surely prayer can't be real action - I mean God surely wants you to DO stuff too?  Yes ... we feel the questions too.  I mean a photo of me sitting here praying is not exactly riveting excitement for people who are hoping God is actually using us to achieve things.  What about proper strategy?  What about being organised?  What about getting things done?  Don't you need to do some pushing, some moving and shaking?  Err ... it is hard to put this gently.  Basically, no.  We have found (through sometimes quite tough experience) that all these excellent approaches to ministry is not the way God uses us. 

But ... Prayer is hard work.  Prayer is not a meaurable-achievement activity.  Prayer demands flexibility.  Prayer is a privilege.  Prayer is adventure.  Prayer is never-knowing-what-will-happen-next.  A very resected colleague of ours once said:

When I work, I work.  When I pray, God works.



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.

Mission from Africa - the other half

at last ... the rest of the story!

PLEASE let me know if you know a book on the subject of "Mission FROM Africa" - here are some of the fascinating issues...I taught the course, but I feel like I am only starting to learn the subject!

Bryson&DeborahSamboja
Global Team: missionaries in Kenya and Africa Director

Does Africa have a distinctive voice for Mission? Who were the unrecorded heroes of the African Christian Movement, the marginally mentioned Evangelists who did most of the work? What sort of Mission agencies and initiatives have arisen from Africa itself? Uhuru & Ubuntu and other key concepts. Am I an African? Pan-Africanism and adoptive euro-african & asia-african cultures. Can the growing African Church avoid the excesses of the Victorian church in mission?

The African Church is key in God's mission to his world,

and African Christians have been part of it from the beginning and still are!

blog experiment

With the kind of work we do, there are no definitive pathways and no trails blazed.  In a way that is the point ... we are trying to serve those who are strangers to the gospel, or strangers to the church.  That means we need to

• have millions of ideas (no problem there)
• work out what God wants us to try (listening to God is tricky and we need other people)
• be willing to keep going without measurable results
• be willing to fail
• work out when to stop trying something

One of the trials this year is blogs ... not, I hasten to add, trial as in burden but as in exploring or assessing. Now. That means that I am trying to construct each blog well, professionally.  I am trying to write about appropriate things, in an accessible style, with interesting bits and bobs and good pictures.  Oh well ... we have to rely on God for everything anyway, so why not attempt the impossible occasionally, or frequently for that matter!

BUT more challenging still, we have to get LOTS of people to click on the blog - because if people don't see it at least once, they won't even know whether it is interesting to them or not. 

• The aim of this blog is that people who are interested in what we are up to (either because they like us, or because they like what we do, or even both) will become followers and visit often.  We hope that this will help you guys to be more part of our life and service.
• The outsiders-urbanspirituallife blog, has been created for people we don't even know. or at least only know a little, or don't know yet.  We hope that it will enable them to pursue the quest at the heart of being human, that it will help some people to discover Jesus.

So here I am tracking how many people have visited a blog.  (Don't worry about my list of other things I plan to do on the whiteboard under my notebook!)  Of course, I can't tell whether people found the blog interesting or helpful ... so I shall have to keep doing this for a long time before I can decide whether I am supposed to keep going, or whether it is another failure in the matrix of brilliant ideas!

SO ... Outsiders has a facebook persona which people can join to see whernever there is a new post.  I put the outsiders blog on my facebook wall too, and I keep hoping that other people might pass it on.  (BTW the day I had the most 'hits' was when I put up a picture of a mime with a 'prostitute' in it!!)

AND if you know anyone who knows us and doesn't know about this blog, please pass on the link!

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.

Serve Creatively

God is the creator; we think he made people to be creative too.  After all, we are created in his image!  So we try to approach our work with imagination and innovation.

We use art a lot.  Martin is a capable visual artist; his paintings and drawing invite people into more.  Lesley gets involved in visual art too in her own way.  We try to write an speak aesthetically.  We use drama, role-play and mime whenever we can.  Music is one of the arts more commonly used in Christian activity and we try not to neglect it!  Our children try to keep us up to date. 
We love the flow of ideas that happens when we 'do art'. 
If you follow this blog you'll see more about how we use the arts.

Creativity is more than using art and different media.  It's being willing to clear the slate and imagine doing something as if it has never been done before.  It's going back to basics and being inventive.  We hope to always be developing, always learning, always discovering in the way we serve God and his people.

Boring?  What's that?