why we’re here slash shane claiborne uk tour [19 august - 3 september]

i was busy responding to a hospitality house [part of my job at the simple way] email when i saw this link to a shane claiborne uk tour happening later this year – if you watch the brief video clip you will get an idea of why val and i are hanging out in these parts with these people – it is an exciting dreama nd vision – what if Jesus actually meant the stuff? what if we lived like we believed it?

so watch the video clip to be inspired, encouraged and challenged [if you haven't yet read 'the irresistible revolution' by shane that will give you a much better idea] and if you are in the uk or know of people who are then encourage them to get along to one of the venues below where he will be speaking – more details can be gotten on this site – http://www.upsidedownkingdomtour.com

Ballymena, Co Antrim
Coleford, Gloucestershire
Southampton
The Black Country
Cheltenham
Burslem, Stoke on Trent
London
Bromley, Kent
Halifax
Perth
Bristol

[fri 19th august to sat 3 september]

time to grow some imagination

this is an article written by shane claiborne for relevant magazine that encourages the church to get creative in their imagination of what a new world could look like – what are you dreaming up?

follow us as we simplify…

i have started a separate blog for posting ‘the simple way’ adventure related stuff so that people who are wanting to follow our journeys and have an idea of what’s going on can simply sign up there and read whatever i get to write about things that are part of our philly trip – if that’s you, you may want to bookmark this link where i have written a basic idea of what it’s all about for those of you who don’t know but more will be written as we arrive there and start to live on the other side… http://thesimpleweigh.wordpress.com

why i believe that God is not faithfull

i was thinking about this the other day and it’s a pretty silly semantical thort but it was mine and that it was too. [eh hem]

and hopefully someone is already penning me an email [can one do that?] to tell me i spelt ‘faithful’ wrong, without reading the blog post [those are some of my favourite people] but actually that was the thort that ran thru my head the other day

God is faithful, for sure, i have no doubt of that and especially so after experiencing it [albeit on many 11 hour 56 minute occasions] many times the first half of this year, but He is not faith full as in full of faith, because God doesn’t need faith like we do.

Why not? Because He knows Himself. i think some dead english guy wrote the phrase “to thine own self be true” which is what God absolutely is. God cannot not be true to Himself. He is Love and Justice and Mercy and Grace and Faithfulness and Wisdom and all of those descriptors get a capital letter when speaking about Him because that is when they are at their absolute truest.

So God doesn’t need faith in Himself – hope that He will act in the way He should, because He is God and that is who He is and He will absolutely always act true to Himself and His character.

So God is definitely not faithfull. He doesn’t need any faith.

But what He is, is Trustworthy.

Which we have learnt from experiencing His faithfulness.

the beautiful val and i started the year trusting that the belief i had that God was wanting us to wait on Him for plans for this year was a valid one and so we waited and prayed and asked and answered other peoples questions using the phrase ‘i don’t know’ to good effect and then two possibilities came up – the Simple Way which we are doing and an internship [for tbV] with IJM [International Justice Mission] which we are not [at the moment anyway]. the process happened pretty smoothly and at the end of april we were invited to join the Simple Way in Philadelphia [those who have read 'The Irresistible Revolution' will know what it is, those who haven't should!] for 19 months with val working in crisis management and emergency services and me being involved with the hospitality house which deals with people coming to check out the work and happenings of the Simple Way and hopefully some communications stuff as well.

which left us with the big 5 – getting someone to take over our apartment, selling both our cars, getting visas, buying air tickets and getting rid of our stuff [with a 6th one - paying off val study visa and car loan - lurking quietly in the background] which have now largely been taken care of thankx to incredible provision by God and people who love Him [and love us which is really cool] – getting no salaries from Feb [and then having the two salaries we were meant to get in April not arrive due to a clerical error] meant that we really had to trust God a lot that we were being obedient to what He had said – and sometimes literally the night before we needed money it would appear in our account, with no-one knowing that we needed it. The visas are on hold as we wait for some info from the Simple Way which we should get later today and it seems like we will get better ones than we were applying for. We were blown away by a gift from a good friend last nite that will allow us to, as val would say, punch number 6 in the face. So it is all looking good.

Did we triumphantly trust God the whole way with no doubting or second-guessing or getting ready to panic or stress or make a plan B? Absolutely not. We had moments of weakness and struggle and panic and doubt. But we continued to trust through it all and God, as always, continued to prove faithful and show us, in His perfect timing that He has us. And a lot of the time He did it through His church, the Christ-following people we are fortunate enuff to be in relationship with. And not always the ones we suspected it would be. We have been pleasantly surprised time and time again.

So God doesn’t need faith. Therefore He cannot be faithfull.
But God is trustworthy, not always in the ways we expect, and so He is absolutely faithful.
Church, when it works, is incredible.
and some other fourth thing…

simple is the way

so after weeks and months it is finally official – the beautiful val and myself received an invite letter from the simple way to join them by 15 june to start a 19 month job slash ministry…

for those of you who don’t know anything about the simple way i suggest you get hold of a book called ‘the irresistible revolution’ by a guy called shane claiborne – one of my top three books ever and definitely changed my life – the simple way is the community that shane, who wrote that book, lives in and is a part of ministering to – it is in a place called Kensington, Philadelphia [ironically i grew up in a place called Kensington, Johannesburg] and the idea is that we will go and live there and work and minister in the community. we see it largely as a huge learning, stretching experience as we want to live among some people who we think really seem to be doing a good job of seeking God and living it out in real, pratical and world-transforming ways – we also hope that we will be able to add to the community in the different ways we serve

tbV is going to be involved in a few things, the main one of which is managing daily crisis control stuff – so dealing with day to day crises that present themselves and also some community development stuff…

i am going to be largely responsible for the hospitality house which is where people who want to go and check out the life and work of the simple way get to stay for a weekend or week or night or whatever [so if you come and visit my official job will be to look after you, hm] so organising people visiting and staying in connection with those who have and maintaining the house and hopefully getting involved with the magazine they produce called Conspire so hopefully contributing to that.

i think it will only really sink in and feel really real when we are sitting in a plane flying americalandwards but it is nice to finally know [many skype calls and emails since end jan/beginning feb] what we are heading towards. at the end of last year i quit my job believing we had to wait on God for the next step and His hand is really all over this and in seeing us survive after 4 months of no salary [sometimes literally day to day] – val and i have been doing transcription this month so we will have money coming in again at the end of april and may but we are still going to need to trust big and probably extend an invitation for others to get involved when it comes to organising vias and airplane tickets and so on.

in part i think the idea of this, living and working alongside one of my heroes, is a dream come true – one i never actually had but which God has brought to the table and which has captured our attention and excited us – this is the next step in the hunger that started developing maybe 6 years ago for real, authentic, world-and-community-transforming church and it is exciting.

i don’t think the way ahead is going to all be easy, but at least know we know it will be simple.

theological masturbation: shane claiborne’s vibes on “the emerging church”

anyone who knows me even slightly well will know that one of my top three life-changing books is “The Irresistible Revolution” by shane claiborne who is one of my real life heroes – i met him briefly a couple of years ago when he was in J Bay speaking at an international Christian surf conference and got to chat to him for a bit and interview him for two magazine articles i was writing. i have visited ‘the simple way’ which is the community that he started in Philadelphia and his writing was partly responsible for my decision to move into Kayamandi township for a year and a half before i married the beautiful Val. In fact we are currently looking at a possible opportunity of hanging out in that community (now called ‘Village House’) as the next thing we do…

so we were looking around on the simple way site [thesimpleway.org] and came across this article where shane speaks out on the ‘emerging church’ – i have generally had issues with people who speak against the emerging church as i believe it is such a broad definition that covers such a range of different ideas and ideologies but i really think shane nails it here in definition and response… and of course i loved the metaphor – here is that paragraph but go and read the rest of the article as well:

from ‘The Emerging Church Brand: The Good, the Bad, and the Messy’ by shane claiborne

“Eventually, books and brands began identifying as “emerging church” or “emergent.” So it got a little messy. In my opinion, “the movement” became a bit narcissistic, and often became little more than theological masturbation: feels good but doesn’t give birth to much. It’s one thing to talk about theology. It’s another thing to talk about talking about theology. There is some sloppy theology out there. Some “emerging church” folks have repeated some of the mistakes of fundamentalism (only with more tattoos), and others have repeated the mistakes of liberalism (only with more wit). Meanwhile, there are many folks who seem to know exactly what “emerging church” is and think it is the anti-Christ. However, neither of these, I am convinced, represents the silent majority of young evangelicals of all colors of skin who love Jesus with all that they are and are not willing to use our faith as simply a ticket to heaven and ignore the hells of the world around us. There is a new evangelicalism that loves Jesus and wants to change the world.”

you can read the rest of his article here

he spoke, i ran [stories from a muslim, part i]

so last nite at our global link worship evening things were going pretty well – nick and his band and then david were leading some great worship times and a bunch of people from different countries had come forward and shared some good stuff and we had had times of prayer and reading of scripture and there was a great turnout – everything was going ok – the main problem for me was that i was hoping to hear different stories from the different lausanne delegates of what God was doing in their different parts of the world and so far we had not really had much of that…

fortunately i have a beautiful wife [and God was quietly and smoothly orchestrating things in the background as He does] who had met up with two guys who minister to Persians (Iranian people) in Canada – one was a funky moustached guy called Jeremy who speaks a LOT like me [turned to Val while he was talking and went "that's me, in Canadian" and she nodded and laughed] and a humble Iranian guy called Afshin who she said i had to let speak… and so i did… hearing just a glimpse (oh you can, sh!) of his testimony i saved him for last and invited Jeremy and Afshin to speak just before Asanda and his team came up to lead the last part of the worship session…

and my life was changed. i’m not kidding. it’s been strongly changed three times after following Jesus with my whole life (which started towards the end of high school) [well actually a lot more times but there are three very specific times i can think of]:

[1] the first was when i read a book called ‘No Compromise’ – the Keith Green story – a story of a man passionate for life and searching in all sorts of places until he found Jesus and then went off (often not in the wisest of ways and often having to repent and change his stance and regroup) passionately serving Him with everything he had until he was tragically killed in a plane crash

[2] the second was when i read a book called ‘The Irresistible Revolution’ by a guy called shane claiborne who i later got to meet and hang out a little bit with and have read subsequent books of – but the story of the revolution – “living as an ordinary radical” was a search for people who actually believed the stuff of the Bible and lived it out and it completely challenged and encouraged and motivated me

[3] and the third was hearing the story of a man callede Afshin Javid, an Iranian, who was a muslim and member of Hezbollah (which is the Iranian version of Al-Quada) who came face to face with Jesus Christ (literally) and has never been the same again

his story last nite challenged me to get my house in order and really start living out the challenges/changes/passion etc etc that were ignited or maybe flame-increased by the stories of Keith and Shane as opposed to simply speaking about them and trying to make other people live them – i was faced with the known-about-for-a-long-time need to really truly die to self and start living uncompromisingly and unflinchingly and completely for Jesus – if i heard that testimony last nite and go back to living how i have always been living, then i don’t think i am going to get another chance – i will suffer the same fate of the rest of the lukewarm, which is to be spatten out of the mouth of Jesus. it has to change.

and so i want to share parts of his story – the book he wrote is called “As easy as drinking water” which was his response to Jesus asking him how easy had he forgiven his sins, which Afshin then changed to “no no no no no, easier than drinking water” before God commissioned him to take the message and share it with others and so i am going to be sharing some of the passages of the book and story that touched me in the hope that you will google it and order it online, and never be the same again.

[you can catch his testimony on you tube here]

coffees with john of ellis

so as part of a pretty incredible weekend up in the kwazulu of natal i managed to get some coffee time with john ellis (formerly of tree63 and ‘john ellis has hung up his cross and become a giant piece of plasticine’ fame) to hear his version of where he is at and whether he still loves Jesus (he does, whoops i hope that wasn’t one of the ‘between you and me’ moments we shared, john?) and what the flippery flop is going on in these parts…

i left having had coffee with a new friend (well i think i did, or having spent time with a reeeeally good actor – aw man he’s probly going to post something on his blog saying i just used time with him to get better blog hits…oh wait, which in turn will give me better blog hits… hee hee win-win, go for it you thespian!) and someone who is a lot on a lot of the pages i find myself on in terms of God, good christian books and Monty Python/Blackadder humour (altho someone do him a favour and buy him a copy of Black Books so can at least update a little, sheesh – oh wait he Mighty Booshed… never mind, as you were) which let’s face it, are among the most important things in life… ‘she turned me into a newt… i got better!’ and all

in fact twice when i mentioned the two books that had changed my life asking him if he’d heard of them his response was ‘that book changed my life’

is john ellis still a christian? you know what? ask him yourself. i’m pretty sure i know the answer to that question and i look forward to many more conversations and hangings (of the caffeine type not the christian lynch mob) with him when we happen to be in the same place and maybe he’ll even one day include a song about No_bob on one of his albums (okay, maybe not THAT close!) but the point is i did not meet jon to interview him for a magazine or a blog and i don’t think it’s particularly fair on him for me to talk about all the stuff we talked about (and hope i haven’t already said too much, john?) and i don’t really want to – i was just glad for the opportunity to spend some time speaking to someone with a brain, who thinks, and loves it that the place where he is in right now is getting other people to think, and has a sly mischievous sense of humour which creeps in and out of his regular conversation

i do think that sometimes the judging of a person, for whatever reason and in whatever way, says more about the person judging than the person being judged and that Jesus had a bit to say on people with planks sticking out of their face muttering comments about the person in front of them cleaning the dust speck off of their contact lens…

tx john for a treemendous time (no no no PLEASE TELL ME I DIDN’T JUST WRITE THAT!)

two of the questions

that i am grappling with lately:

one of them is taking the incredible life-transforming simple-gospel stuff we are reading about in books like Shane Claiborne’s ‘The Irresistible Revolution’ and Erwin McManus ‘an unSTOPPABLE force’ and Rich Stearns ‘The Hole in the Gospel’ and even going back to the legen….dary Keith Green’s ‘No Compromise’ story and not just being excited and ‘challenged’ and ‘changed’ by it, and not just talking about it and maybe looking down on others who ‘don’t get it’ and all that and when do we actually start doing it and being transformed and changed – do we actually ‘get it’ or are we just excited by the idea? that is a tough one and i know my biggest problem is knowing the ‘how’ cos i am excited and i do think it’s great and i do want to live the simple passionate compassionate miraculous life to the full Jesus calls us to, but practically what do i need to do? question one i am grappling with.

part of question one is how do i justify the fact that i just spent R600 on an Eddie Izzard dvd boxset but don’t feel i can justify spending R700 to R900 for me and tbV to go watch him live (i guess that could be a problem with justifying both as opposed to either one of them perhaps) but then also not being able to justify someone else wanting to spend R300 on make-up for a wedding? why is mine okay and theirs not okay?

linked to that question will be that my lavish will be simple and ridiculous to Bishop’s Court residents and Saudi Arabia moguls but my simple will be wasteful and lavish and dreamed of for a typical Kayamandi shack resident – wealth and poverty can be relative to an extent.

question 2 regards being pastory type guy at enGAGE, a congregation that is part of the Vineyard church in Stellenbosch – are we really effecting change in the community or am i realistically simply just maintaining a small community of like-minded people? as in really, like what is really really happening there? cos if this year is all about just looking after 30 to 50 Christians and trying to make sure they are all still Christian at the end of the year and maybe a bit more Christian, then what the flippy flipperson? there MUST be more than this.

not needing answers (well, not from you) – just needing to ask the questions…