A New Field of Service

So here I am- a continent, three cultures, and two months since my last post. A lot has changed. For starters, I'm still working with the IMB. Our regional leadership has been a tremendous support as we've begun the "About Europe" meetings and worked to launch the Upstream Collective. My ...

Nothing To See Here, Folks…

We often have people express interest in coming for a visit to "see" our ministry. Some are church planters from the States, some are pastors of existing churches, some are missionaries in other places. We've had seminary students write papers on us, journalists write articles about us, and at least ...

Pants On Fire

As a missionary, I am tempted to lie on a regular basis. It may or may not surprise you to read that statement, but it's true nonetheless. What's more, I find the temptation strongest when I'm talking with a coworker, partner, or supporter. It all starts out innocently enough; someone ...

Not Yet

God called me to missions in Western Europe by giving me a vision for what He could (would?) do among the people here. I was excited about being part of God's interaction with the postmodern, postchristian people of Europe. I really believed that God was going to start a church ...

A Church on Every Corner

I recently read an interesting thing about Wal-Mart. It seems that in cities across the country, Wal-Mart stores are up-sizing from their regular old large retail centers to shiny new extra-large "Super Centers." In many cases, these new stores are right next door or across the street from the old ...

Virtual Missions

Not so long ago, internet chat rooms were mostly populated by perverts and turbonerds. The current generation of young adults, however, has moved into the neighborhood and changed the rules. They've never known life without computers. For them, meeting people online is a normal part of life. They have real ...

Does Culture Count?

A key element of our missiology is our understanding of what heavenly worship will look like. This will affect the degree to which we value the individual cultures of the nations. It seems that most of us tend toward one of two extremes. Of course, I simplify here for the ...

The CPM Storm

In keeping with my complete inability to leave well enough alone, I'd like to illustrate the point of my last post. Some of you will be surprised to learn that there was, in fact, a point to my last post."Church planting movement" is the term we've adopted to describe a ...

Where Are The CPMs?

Our regional (and organization-wide) mission and strategy is to "facilitate a Church Planting movement among people groups and/or population segments greater than 100,000 people and less than 2% evangelized. In past posts, I've taken issue with the definitions of "people groups" and "evangelized," and I've voiced my confusion over the ...

Get Out Of The Way

I've posted about this before, but I've been hearing and reading a lot about "contextualization"of the gospel. If you've every read my blog before, you likely know that I believe that we the church should do all that we can to minimize the cultural differences that hinder the communication of ...

A New Field of Service

So here I am- a continent, three cultures, and two months since my last post. A lot has changed. For starters, I'm still working with the IMB. Our regional leadership has been a tremendous support as we've begun the "About Europe" meetings and worked to launch the Upstream Collective. My ...

The UpStream Collective

Several people have asked about what's next for me. The truth is, I don't know. I still don't know what I'm going to do for a living after we arrive in the U.S. Sure it sounds irresponsible and immature to up and leave a perfectly good job and regular paycheck ...

The Only Thing Harder Than Arriving? Leaving.

I'm not the sensitive emotional type. I never cry at weddings. I hate romantic comedies. I think that pictures of babies in flower pots should be considered cruelty. I don't save souvenirs, birthday cards, or mementos. As I pack up to leave the field, I'm experiencing this strange sensation- emotion. ...

The Devil Is In The Details

In the comments section of my last post Now Tell Us How You Really Feel, a reader asked about some of the details of my transition from the field back to the United States. In the past, I haven't written as much about these sorts of details; partly to protect ...
May 6th 2008
Tags: Uncategorized 5 Comments

Now Tell Us How You Really Feel

I'd like to thank everyone who's sent emails and comments in support of our move. I'm not sure what it means when people seem to be glad you're leaving, but I'm going to take it as an encouragement. One thing that many people are asking is whether I'm going to really ...

Search

The archives run deep. Feel free to search older content using topic keywords.