in the realm of the dragon- sri lanka update2

My friends, my family.
I cannot begin to speculate where the week has gone. Just seven days ago I was writing to you, having just been in Sri Lanka for a couple days. Now, with a week gone by, only a few days remain in my stay here. God has been gracious to us as we've traveled from church to church through hill country and then on to Batticaloa on the east coast, where we have been for the last four days. Thank you for your ongoing prayers. We have enjoyed safe and expedient travel, even through army occupied areas that I described in a recent talk as 'the realm of a dragon', complete with sacked buildings, nearly impassible roads, army arrogance, empty places of worship and desolation. We have felt the strength and protection afforded us by Northview prayer cover.

Before I go any further, I need to share with you what a blessing it has been to hear of Northview's ongoing love and support of our friends the Dynna's. I received news of Glenn's accident on Sunday morning here (Saturday night in Regina) in a phone call with Vonda. We have been praying regularly for Glenn , Donna, the family and the business since receiving word. I am so grateful to Pastor Belinda, Jaylynne and others, not only for keeping me posted through email as to how to continue to pray, but also for coordinating some systematic support for our dear friends. I have shared with the team here how proud I am of our church for binding together to love and support our friends. Know that I join you in praying for miraculous healing, hope, comfort and peace every single time the Holy Spirit brings the Dynna family to mind, as well as systematically at specific times daily. I also pray thanksgiving for a church family that serves its own as well as others. You are a blessing.

So this week we concluded our pastor and church meetings- meeting with 12 pastors in 6 churches over 5 days. The traveling through hill country by van was exhausting, but God sustained us and has done much to continue to foster church unity within the movement here in Sri Lanka . Pastor Jayamani has been doing an outstanding job as superintendent, and has been instrumental in bringing strength and identity to the movement here. Please continue to pray that the fellowship of the churches will continue to grow stronger and more unified, and will continue to bring God glory as it tackles the challenges that are part of life in a civil wartorn land.

Arriving in Batticaloa late on Tuesday night, we changed gears and focus, directing our energy to the Tsunami relief project. There was a fair bit of preparation work that was required in order to turn the houses over to their recipients on Saturday night. Our project includes ten houses, the first five to be given away today (Saturday.) Nothing could have prepared me for the depth of connection that I felt with this project personally. Northview's involvement began with a series of Tsunami relief offerings that were taken up in January 2005. I travelled here to Batticaloa the following summer and then a year later Matt Larson and I returned to this area of Sri Lanka to negotiate with the government for some land for Tsunami refugee relief. To sign letters of understanding on behalf of the pastors of all the Free Methodist Churches that gave to this project was deeply moving for me. However, to be asked to officiate in the turning over of one of the homes was surreal. As I have been honoured by these involvements, so our church has been honoured because, through it all, God continues to be glorified through the faithfulness of this little church of ours.

We will leave tomorrow after I speak to the church that Pastor Guna has drawn together in the shed on the project site. We head back to Colombo to lead a theology class for the pastors here. Please join me in prayer for the Board of Administration meeting that takes place on February 25th. There is much business to be discussed, including plans for the summer programs that Matt and Brooke Larson are leading a team into in August. We return home on the 27th, but I have no clue when... Vonda will know. In any event, I look forward to being home with you all again next weekend.

You continue to be in my prayers daily. Thank you for including us in yours.
poitu varam
d

in the realm of the dragon- sri lanka update1

My friends, my family.
What a gift it is to be your pastor, serving here on your behalf! We arrived early Friday morning and have already done a lot of connecting with the pastors here. By the time of this writing on Saturday night, we had already met with three of the pastors and stopped in at Lanka Bible College to pick up some materials for the class that Dan Sheffield will be teaching in Colombo in our final days here. We have a very full itinerary, but if you would join us with prayer I know that God will afford us the strength to see through these plans- our intention is to visit every church or in the Free Methodist movement while here... Good thing Pastor Jey got here a bit earlier, as the connecting he did during the week prior to our arrival makes this visitation goal attainable. Vonda has received the updated itinerary and will be happy to get it to you if you want to be specific as a prayer partner.

Please pray for unity within the movement here. There are some issues that have crept in which threaten to bring division between some of the leaders here. As can happen in pretty much anything where people are concerned, problems with communication and trust pose some threat to the foundation that has been lain these past five years. We are working very hard to listen carefully and share discerningly, and are very pleased to have the opportunity to meet with all prior to the Board of Administration meeting that is to take place on February 26, our final day in Colombo.

I have been asked by the denomination to write a chronicle of the Tsunami story, beginning on boxing day, 2004 and culminating with the handing over of the first relief houses. Although this is an overwhelming task, I consider it an honour to be asked to write it. We are also doing some shooting for an accompanying documentary film on this topic. Being that Northview has been so involved in this story from the beginning, I am very excited about the project.

The political climate here is cooler than it has ever been during my visits. I am grateful to God for this, as it represents the answers to many prayers on many different levels. As you pray prayers of thanksgiving for this, please continue to remember to lift this country and its people up. The civil war dragon still considers this place its realm and this people to be its subjects- we received some bad news again today, and although we continue to travel in the shadow and shelter of the hand of God, I long for a time when the whole country enjoys the same peace.

Tomorrow we will worship in the Nawalapathiya church where Jared, Shalene, Vonda, Devon, Mark and I served during the first days of our trip in August, 2007. I think it's fair to say that "Godwin says Hi!" to you all. Ask those who have been here what that means.

Bless and be blessed
d

of dragons and would-be heroes

so i thought it might be interesting to explore the whole idea of dragons- but discovered early on that there are some key differences between how different cultures portray this mythological creatures, as well as the powers and such ascribed to them. rather than go on and on, let me say this about that:

go to wikipedia and type in 'dragon'
now read the entry.

there- so in order to move forward, let me just clarify... the dragons of which i speak are not the oriental ones- (probably the subject of a whole nother blog). no, we're looking at the horrific creatures that lace european mythologies with a larger than life, manifest evil presence. the stuff that jabberwocky (from lewis carroll's through the looking glass) and smaug (from jrr tolkien's the hobbit) are made of- the stuff that the great heroes like saint george and shrek have always had to defeat in order to save the girl.

(interesting: read revelation 12.1-17 with this idea in mind)

in his Complete Guide To Middle-Earth, robert foster defines the word Dragon as follows:
"Evil creatures of northern Middle-earth, huge, powerful, scale covered, long-lived, greedy for treasure and full of malice. They could bewilder anyone who looked in their eyes and their words were cunning and seductive…"

these giant villains of western myth are the ultimate self-serving consumers: destroying, controlling or hoarding all that is in their path, choking off life and freedom and while cultivating a stockholm syndrome-like bond of fear and appeasement, requiring absolute servitude of those who live within their realm. they create slaves- they always have.

it's funny how certain ideas act as hyperlinks to other experiences. all week long, i've been thinking of a certain bruce cockburn song which has embedded in it the title of the album in which it appears. the tune is called 'hills of morning' and the record is dancing in the dragons' jaws- very strongly based on and alluding to the writings of charles williams.

(tangent: no surprise that the quote in the previous blog entry is from the same record. sometimes we read a book or listen to a song or see a film and we receive one idea- other times the aesthetic leads us in a number of different directions through a number of different topics simply because we continue to be willing to receive more from the larger work.)

Women and men moved back and forth
In between effect and cause
And just beyond the range of normal sight
This glittering joker was dancing in the dragon's jaws
(bruce cockburn)

this song seems to hint at hope that lies beyond that which we readily perceive, but which is nonetheless real. it and the works by charles williams that inspired it "explore the sacramental intersection of the physical with the spiritual while also examining the ways in which power, even spiritual power, can corrupt as well as sanctify." (WIKIpedia, of charles williams)

the really cool thing is that, unlike his oxford writers' guild (self-dubbed Inklings) contemporaries c.s. lewis and j.r.r. tolkien, williams' fantasy pieces take place in our contemporary world- which perhaps invites the question:

what ARE the dragons of today? two rather nasty ones come to mind, along with a third that is unmatched in its subtlety:

• Economics: commerce, trade and credit (affluence/ disparity)
• Politics: abuse of power, influence and resource leads to injustice
• Substance issues: counterfeit gospels offering temporary peace from the other two (and countless others) all the while establishing its own realm and subjects.
  

but with the identification of some rather heinous dragons, comes the responsibility to somehow fight them. how do we, the church, deliver hope and freedom to those who are held captive today? how do we, the church, bring a dance of freedom and hope into the very jaws of today's dragons?

well, first of all, we need to remind ourselves that it's not our fight. it’s a Spirit thing

matthew 28.18-20 (famously referred to as the great commission) speaks of Christ's authority, and of the need for those who follow him to go out into all the world. luke 24.45-49, tells the same story from the perspective of another, with certain nuances draw to the fore. in the luke version, Jesus speaks of going out, but reminds his followers that there is an order to things, and that they are to wait until they receive that which is promised to them from the Father: 'power from on high.' acts 1.8, (traditionally held to be written by the same author as the gospel of luke) records the words of Christ more directly related to this promise of power and authority: 'you will receive power when my Holy Spirit comes upon you and you will be my witnesses...' and so on.

see, without that power there is no authority and, one could contend that when there is no authority there cannot be any real victory over a dragon. mere mortals are limited in strength and resource and dragons seem to be these horrible things that know and respect no limits. the merely natural cannot prevail- the supernatural must engage for it is a supernatural battle.

so how do we engage supernaturally? how do we receive this promise of dragon-thwarting might? well, it seems to come through agreement entered into with God. it seems to come with being in league with good rather than evil, and being in relationship with the source of the good... without this relationship, there is no witness to bear.

the challenge (arguably greater, even, than the challenge posed by the dragon itself) is to actively cultivate conversational intimacy with God- to speak regularly with, not to God. speaking with connotes a dialogue in which both parties are engaged, taking turns, alternately speaking and listening. this allows God to draw up divine plans with his servants which enable these servants to be in agreement with and fully used within them.

it's not enough to be ready to fight.
we must needs be ready to be part of someone else's fight- God's.

so what does one wear to someone else's war?

i read this and thought this 1

i read this:
Many of us are refusing to allow distorted images of our faith to define us. There are those of us who, rather than simply reject pop evangelicalism, want to spread another kind of Christianity, a faith that has as much to say about this world as it does about the next. New prophets are rising up who try to change the future, not just predict it. There is a movement bubbling up that goes beyond cynicism and celebrates a new way of living, a generation that stops complaining about the church it sees and becomes the church it dreams of. (Shane Claiborne, The Irresistible Revolution, http://www.amazon.ca/Irresistible-Revolution-Shane-Claiborne/dp/0310266300/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1233676295&sr=8-1)

and thought this:
sun's up- mm hmm- looks okay
the world survives into another day
and i'm thinking about eternity
(bruce cockburn, wondering where the lions are)

eternity- not the forever and a day kind, but the here and now kind. hope is a ray, having a beginning and no ending point, traveling towards a vague horizon.

what mission am i to fulfill at this point in time and space to actively participate in the sharing of hope and the moving forward of a people into a new day, prepared by God to be lived out to the realization of God's dream for us all?

from the rubble of rebellion is raised a tiny flower of hope

i realize that i don't think much about flowers. i rarely consider lilies, and when i do i'm not even really clear as to what it is i'm considering- i don't know what a lily is. luckily, that's not the point. the lily is a symbol that Jesus used in his familiar sermon on the mount to remind us that God takes care of that which is surrendered to his glory…

and fortunately, flowers have remained surrendered. they've never fallen in with rebels, never bought into lies about their identity, never fought against God’s established order of things, never brought death into the world…

no, we did that, and continue to participate in it.

disconnection took place and all that was meant to be was relegated to all that is now… in short, the world fell into disrepair, largely because we, in our desire for dominion and autonomy, took on more than we could handle by our own fallen natural means…

this has always bugged God.

and God has been saying within earshot of those writing his words down, since just after the beginning, "O, that they would be my people and I would be their God…I just want my people back."

this is God, creator of the universe, sovereign over all, confessing the desire of his heart-
his missio dei.

so if God’s mission is to reconcile that which was lost to him in death through death itself- the death and resurrection of Christ- then what is our mission, as those called out of darkness into new light and life, as part of that of The Plan?

the leadership of the church that i have been called to shepherd, has articulated its mission as
To be a missional-minded church of growing worshipers who befriend the spiritually disconnected in Regina and beyond.

but what does Missional even mean?

alan hirsch, in his amazing book Forgotten Ways puts it this way:
A missional church is a church that defines itself, and organizes its life around, its real purpose as an agent of God's mission to the world. In other words, the church's true and authentic organizing principle is mission. When the church is in mission, it is the true church. The church itself is not only a product of that mission but is obligated and destined to extend it by whatever means possible.
(http://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Ways-Reactivating-Missional-Church/dp/1587431645)

perhaps that's what Jesus in foretelling in Acts 1.8 when he says with some of his final words on earth, that the Holy Spirit of God would come upon people, driving them beyond their own inward gazing and the self-concerned spirituality to something that would be the delivery system of God's hope of the nations, even to the ends of the earth.

missional guru, lesslie newbiggin, describes missio ekklesia, the mission of the church as:
the church's obedient participation in that action of the Spirit by which the confession of Jesus as Lord becomes the authentic confession of every people, each in its own tongue.

but how do we as a people, as a family, as ‘agents on God’s mission' actively participate in the realization of God’s redemption dream?

in the classic pink floyd tune, Us and Them, roger waters makes some observations about conflict and injustice that are poignant:

Us, and them
And after all we're only ordinary men.
Me, and you.
God only knows it's noz what we would choose to do.

Forward he cried from the rear
and the front rank died.
And the general sat and the lines on the map
moved from side to side.

Black and blue
And who knows which is which and who is who.
Up and down.
But in the end it's only round and round.

Haven't you heard it's a battle of words
The poster bearer cried.
Listen son, said the man with the gun
There's room for you inside.

Down and out
It can't be helped but there's a lot of it about.
With, without.
And who'll deny it's what the fighting's all about?

Out of the way, it's a busy day
I've got things on my mind.
For the want of the price of tea and a slice
The old man died.

it shouldn't come as much of a surprise that in an earlier breakout session of the same retreat that records Christ's words about considering lilies, he spoke quite directly to injustice and to the missio dei:

Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called sons of God. (matthew 5.9)

if we want to be part of the missio dei, we need to bring peace, sowing seeds of hope and justice in our community, our country and our world and then tending to these seeds. we are the hands of the gardener- we are how God intends to raise up new flowers from the rubble of a rebellion that is several millennia old.


perhaps this begins with tweeking our mission statement so that it reads to be a missional church rather than to be a missional-minded church.

there is often too great a chasm between thinking and being.

pillows and prayers

two monks went up onto a hill to pray on a windy day.
at the insistence of the one, they both brought pillows.

upon attaining the summit, the other monk sat down and began to ready his pillow for a time of lengthy prayer and meditation. the one, however, remained standing. with his eyes he followed the wind as it bent the trees and brushed the weeds back and forth in waves through the valley below.

the seated monk began to pray and meditate.
the standing monk continued to stand, looking down.

after awhile, the seated monk hazarded a glance, with one eye, towards his standing comrade. with a swift and decisive motion, the standing monk produced a knife from beneath his habit and cut open his pillow, releasing the feathers, surprisingly multi-coloured, into the valley, carried by the wind.

the seated monk stood up and walked to his friend's side. the standing monk, whose idea it had been to bring pillows this day on their prayer walk, remained silent.

the wind continued to blow and the feathers continued to drift to and fro for quite some time, each one eventually finding the ground on the terms established for it by that wind and of course by the spinning of the earth.

the once-seated monk finally asked:
brother, how will you pray in comfort, now that you have no pillow?

his teacher replied:
i would rather sacrifice to make this world a softer place
than pray comfortable prayers.

***

God doesn’t call us to comfort, but to make an impact.
Awareness is a big issue-
we all need to see that what we can do together is
bigger than what any of us can do on our own.
(Scott Ridout)

***

in order to make an impact, a force must be directed towards a target and released… we have some difficulty with releasing- with letting go…

Jesus points this out in his great story of stewardship, found in matthew 25.14-29. you remember- the one where the three guys are entrusted with gifts and the one 'wicked, lazy servant', fearing for his future lest the truth about his management skills be discovered and the gift be lost, buries his in the ground? well, there is a very strongly telling statement made at the end of Jesus' story which divides the world into two types of people: the HAVES and the HAVE-NOTS. he says:

For everyone who has will be given more, and he will have an abundance. Whoever does not have, even what he has will be taken from him. (matthew 25.29)

so the orientation question hangs in the air:
am i a HAVE or a HAVE NOT?

see, i don't believe for a moment that this story is saying God is interested in a bizarro world robin hood thing, making the rich folks richer by robbing from the poor. it has to do with two basic mindsets: being able to see what one has (the HAVES) versus only being able to see what one does NOT have (the HAVE-NOTs).

it's like the difference between times of want times of plenty.
recession versus procession.

a recession can be described as a time of economic contraction- the time of withdrawal or cessation from the usual work or activity. in buying into a recession mindset- to that of being a HAVE NOT, we clench, going against the natural and healthy procession that takes us forward with courage and optimism in the direction of God’s dream of an end to disparity and injustice for all…

in a recession mindset, we can lose track of a crucial truth about all that we have: God owns it and it is given to us in trust. once we receive this truth, we become more generous, less clenched. we are even able to become less selfish and more aware of the needs of those around us. it probably has to do with maslow's hierarchy or needs: once the basic needs of shelter and sustenance are met, people start to become increasingly aware of community and of the role they are to play within community.

earlier on in matthew's gospel, Jesus says “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” it is in the context of sending his friends out to share the light and hope of the gospel with the people in their neighbourhood…

when we reorient to the God-honouring perspective of HAVE, we are more prone to live that out amongst those with whom we share this space... who may very well struggle with being HAVE NOT.

what will i do with my pillow and my prayer today?

hope and help

dancing is not something just anyone can do... it's sort of a 'many are called but few are chosen' kinda thing.

this past sunday, as part of our musical worship experience, a member of the worship band returned her microphone to its stand and came down off of the stage. once on the floor, she began to dance before the cross. it was beautiful and moving.

yet i found myself thinking about mosh pits and how the dancing is so different there. different movement done for different reasons, perhaps.

the mosh pit at a neil young show i attended in the early 90's ground to a halt as the band settled into the opening chords of his song 'helpless.' what had been, just moments before, a throng of pushing and shoving and bouncing and falling settled into a slightly swaying prayer meeting, as the people in attendance joined in with the chorus, singing their existencial confession of helplessness with one very full, multitimbral voice amidst a cloud of second, third, and fourth hand pot smoke.

helpless helpless helpless helpless...

i stood there, praying with and for this gathering, begging God to make himself known to those who were, in that very still and collectively shared moment, making their honest confession. the words of the psalmist in psalm 9.20 resonate in moments like this:

let the nations know that they are but men.

anyway, interesting how our language works. the words help and hope are often interchangeable. one receiving no help in this journey rarely holds any hope either.

Q: what robs people of their hope (rendering them hopeless)?
A: a lack of control- being subject to factors that cannot be negotiated with- the uncontrollables like gas-prices, harsh weather, investment portfolios, freak circumstance and unforeseeable hardship, other people's freewill, disease/death…

we need to move beyond the time of asking questions with no easy answers to a time of becoming God’s answers to the questions of those living in a world where every living thing dies…

the questions often spoken in the deepest recesses of our hearts.
the sounds of silence..
Does God SEE?
Does God CARE?
Does God HELP?
Does God LOVE?

it occurs to me that when we bring help we become hope for another and this silence is broken by the word of God, spoken through the life of one who bears his light in this present darkness.

We must become holy not because we want to feel holy
but because Christ must be able to live his life fully in us
(Mother Teresa)

this past new year's eve, three guys who are part of our church held a chemical-free house party/rave, posting notices around town and on facebook inviting all comers.

the idea? offer some hope to those who want to party in the new year, but don't want to kill brain cells or further the hold that certain harsh chemical slave-masters have upon their lives.

seventy kids showed up... many had never met the hosts, but joined the crowd and received grace and acceptance there, regardless of other lifestyle choices, faith journeys or socioeconomic strata.

and instead of crying 'helpless', they shouted blessing to and with each other: happy new year

it's part of our true restored identity to be hope for another. this is church.

the misseological question is posed in every new moment: how might we live amongst one another, that Jesus would be more real to all of us and those whom we influence?

whether it is across town or across the world, we are called to bring hope, celebrating their difference by offering ours.

Ephesians 1.3-14; 2 Corinthians 3.1-3, 5.14-18 (Message)