2012 in review – the blog stats… some interesting fun facts…

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2012 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

4,329 films were submitted to the 2012 Cannes Film Festival. This blog had 34,000 views in 2012. If each view were a film, this blog would power 8 Film Festivals

Click here to see the complete report.

the simple away

Wow! 19 months flew by, just like… well 570 days, really.

June last year, after about four months of weekly Skype calls with our present and to be future bossman Darin Petersen, the beautiful Val [tbV] and i arrived in Kensington, Philadelphia, Americaland to live and work at the Simple Way non-profit as part of the first batch of an internship program [which was later upgraded to a residency program when they saw our skills, or something]…

[a fun fact is that i was born and raised in an area called Kensington in Johannesburg, South Africa, the country and so in one sense it was a return to my roots but not really]

We joined Erica [aka Amy Winehouse meets activism], Aaron Condo…n [aka Monkman, master, my lord] and Beth [aka Beth or the Doodler, or quite possible milkwoman, altho we never called her that] who was doing a shorter three month internship and we became known as ‘The Village People’ [the house we stayed in was called the Village House, we did the YMCA a lot less than you would probably imagine]. The first internationals to be invited to be part of the program, so quite a bit of a risk really. Shane Claiborne and his new bride Katie Jo lived a few houses down the road, Darin and his wife Meeghan and their kids Just Ice [as i called him, because i wanted to give him a little space] and Madix… and then a handful more people who lived in other places but worked with us in the office… and later Sueihn Lee and Dan Brearley were added as Erica, Aaron and Beth [twice] moved on…

This is the passage that indirectly got me there, that i had been wrestling with when i chanced upon Shane’s book, ‘The Irresistible Revolution’ 6 years before, which resonated with a lot of my struggles with how church looked like now compared to then – ‘They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Everyone was filled with awe at the many wonders and signs performed by the apostles. All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold property and possessions to give to anyone who had need. Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.’

and tonite we fly out… season over… back to South Africa to hang out with friends and family and watch some live cricket dressed as a Hobbit and hopefully get some hockeying and improv in and meet my new nephew Joshua and get to see if i was telling lies about South Africa mayonnaise for the last 19 months and have some braais and my mom’s secret birthday dessert she makes for me once a year and possibly pool party and hopefully get my dreads touched up and get some rest and relaxation and reflection and more…

before a new season begins. which will be with the same boss, different no-profit [Relational Tithe, or as it is about to be more commonly known Common Change] but the absolute same task of following Jesus [or trying to] and seeking to be a part of His kingdom growing here as it is in heaven.

and so the big question i guess, as we enter one of those reflectful times of both the end of a life season and the end of a calendar year [sorry Mayans, the Romans were right!] is how was the time? Good, bad or ugly? A combination of all, perhaps? Was the way simple?

i guess you will have to take me out for coffee [or a rack of Spur Ribs with extra basting] when we get home and you can ask that in person…

i can tell you it wasn’t easy. well, not all the time, some parts were really easy. Val and i love Kensington. we absolutely love Philly. we love so many of the people we got to meet and hang out and do life with.

i can tell you we would definitely make the same decision to do it all again – good, bad and ugly.

but it is time to go. and so later today i think we will.

i do still very much love Jesus and am hungry to see His kingdom come.

after years and years of loving Him [or trying to] and serving Him [ditto] i have found that His way, although simple in concept, is very rarely simple when you actually try to actively live it out. [fortunately He never leaves you to do it alone...]

so a new year, a new location, a new mission…
but still the continuing overall theme of ‘Love God, Love people… and all the rest is commentary!

Thort for the Week

so probably close to 15 years ago i wrote a challenging email to a couple of friends of mine about some aspect of following Jesus… a week later i did the same… at some point i told someone about it and they asked to be added and so i added them… pretty soon i started spam-inviting people from the typical cheesy group Christian emails that used to hit my inbox and some of them decided to join… after a while i moved from hotmail to yahoogroups as a means of sending an email to a bunch of people in one move as opposed to adding each individual email address… and somewhere in the middle of all of that it got the name ‘Thort for the Week’ which i did pretty regularly until i joined the Simple Way 19 months ago and took a bit of a sabbatical and then in the last few months wrote more ‘Thort for the Three Month’ than for the week…

a few people became ten people which then reached 100 and at some point i crossed the 1000 mark of subscribers and when i went on sabbatical there were something like 3500 email addresses attached to the list… i imagine the number of people who actually receive them and read them is a whole lot less but i imagine there were a bunch of people reading and as we head home for a bit of a break and then start up with Relational Tithe next year i have felt like it might be a good thing to start up again [one thing i like about it is it keeps me focused on an issue or Christ-following idea for the week so at the very least generally proves helpful to me] and so i am planning on giving that a try in the new year…

if you are not someone who has previously been subscribed to Thort for the Week ['Thort' being the phonetical shortened spelling of 'Thought'] and think this might be something you would like to take a look at, you can email me your preferred email address to brettfish@hotmail.com and i can add you to the list… Jan might be a little sporadic with being home and all, but hoping to get more weekly by Feb and beyond…

if you want to get an idea of what TFTW looks like then i think you can do so by clicking here and i would suggest scrolling back a year or so to when it was coming out more regularly…

this is not biblical exposition – it is aimed at engaging with an aspect of the Bible or Jesus-following and getting you and me to think about it a little more deeply and then hopefully apply it to our lives – taking Jesus seriously as if He really meant the stuff He said.

Mark, my words: Unity, not denominationalism

As we look at Mark chapter 3 verse 20-27 i take a bit of a reverse glimpse of it by looking at denominations vs denominationalism [or as i sometimes refer to them in talks as demonisations which is what we make of denominations when we start worshipping them or who they are] and encourage each of us, whether we belong to a denomination or not [don't get me started on "non-denominational"], to be keeping the kingdom of God and the greater church in mind as we live out our Jesus-following lives…

Take a look at Mark 3 vs 20-27

to continue to the next one and see Jesus’ thoughts on family, click here.

Mark, my words: How do we pick leadership?

next up, we see Jesus select the 12 who He designates as apostles and makes some very interesting choices…

so take a look at Mark 3 verse 13 to 19

to see the next post on unity, not denominationalism go here.

when traditions are grabbed on to.

i am not a big fan of tradition whose only purpose in life is “we did it this way last time”

last nite, the beautiful Val and i celebrated Christmas eve with a few of our neighbors from Potter street where we have lived the last 19 months and are 5 days away from leaving… it was a fitting end to have a house full of good food, laughter and excited wife squeals and dances as the snow we had hoped for and asked for and desired so much decided to put in a guest appearance.

it was a really fun and feel-good evening and really quite simple to pull off.

and it could quite easily have been different! we could have rocked out on a lavish two person feast and just gone wild on our favourite foods and desserts and made it all about us. we could also have saved ourselves the effort of cooking and cleaning and made a reservation at some local restaurant and let someone else do the hard work.

but we decided to reach out to some of those who we have befriended this year. to some who may have spent Christmas by themselves. and to those who have emphatically welcomed us into their lives and space.

                                                                                                                                    i suspect it had something to do with us both coming from families who specifically at Christmas [altho many other times as well] made a special effort to reach out to those who are lonely or alone or less fortunate than themselves…

we may not have fully grasped it as children and may even at times have been resentful as to why these ‘strangers’ are invading our space and taking a part of our time and our cherished favourite foods… but the moment we understood it and realised the significance of this simple act demonstrating the life belief we hold to and try to live out, it started to make the most sense in the world…

so we invited some friends around. we prepared a whole bunch of yummy food [including an amazing wife experiment involving sweet potatoes and marshmallows as a main course item] and we decorated and we prepared a fun question activity and we jumped and dance and sang when snow started to fall in the midst of it all – and we had the most amazing and hopefully transforming meal and evening.

i am not a big fan of tradition whose only purpose in life is “we did it this way last time” but tradition that is soaked with purpose and meaning and absolutely dripping with Love… well, that is something that we will have to keep coming back to, year after year…

and i would love to hear stories from anyone else who did something at Christmas that involved reaching out to someone different from those expected… please share.

One way to make your mark [in the ongoing journey of the andersons]

So yesterday i wrote a post sharing a deeper glimpse into the future life, work and ministry of the andersons over here – we will be joining a non-profit called Relational Tithe with a working platform called Common Change which, in a very big nutshell, gathers resources from a group of people and then uses them to meet advocated needs from people within the group.

It is a very exciting project and both Valerie and myself are super amped for it. Neither of us are huge fans of the whole asking people money in support thing [although i have less of a problem when it comes to spending other peoples' money on something i really believe in, it's just the asking that is generally awkward] but this looks like it is the way this thing has to go – we will be committing to an 18 month period and so it will be a closed ask [as opposed to "support us for the next ten or twenty years"] which makes us feel a little more comfortable as well.

I shared yesterday that Common Change is in line for a matching grant which means that if people pledge donations of up to $1000 then Giving of Life will match whatever is donated up to and including that $1000. Currently Common Change is sitting on $225 and so has $775 to go. The deal has just been sweetened for us by Common change committing to using the $1000 extra they get [if reached] towards our plane tickets and this is where you come in.

This is a way that you can make a donation towards a really great project [the money raised will go towards admin and site hosting costs to ensure that 100% of the tithed money from the groups continues to go towards the needs being met] and also contribute towards our flights back here [mid Feb] and the start of our next journey.

So if you are able to donate $5 or $10 or even $50 or $100, every little bit helps a lot and it will take a whole bunch of people donating a small amount to reach the $1000 pretty easily – if you would like to do that then head here and add your bit. If you don’t have money to donate [or even if you do] there is also a space on that page to vote and the top three receive some kind of bonus [if you sign up via Facebook and Twitter you get two extra votes which you can use - voting is free and i don't think puts you on any spam lists]

thank you for your time and interest and possible donation or vote… every little bit counts…

[if you want to be more personally involved in our journey then drop me an email at brettfish@hotmail.com and let me know how you would like to be involved]