Speaking it out

"Everyone we pray for cry..." said the son to my wife after a meeting in a neighbouring church where we ministered. And the Spirit was really present in that meeting as were needy people, many from the nearby "asientamiento", settlement, which is a place where very poor people build their small shacks on given ground. That the presence of God makes us cry seems to be a universal trait.

What also struck me that night was the power of the spoken word. God used just basic affirmations from the Bible to touch and encourage people. They were built up and comforted by the words that we spoke out.

Last Sunday I prayed for a young man in our church and also then spoke out some things I had felt for him. In our conversacion yesterday he remarked on how that had impacted him and we spoke at length about those things.

Spoken words have a magic of their own, they create something. That can be misused, like in the election times in Paraguay at the moment. But when they are spoken with love and truth they can literally change someones life!

It seems to me that's there's a basic lack of affirmation and nice words in the world. And there's even more a need to speak out the truths of the Bible over our lives. And if the Spirit fills them and make them prophetic, wonderful!

But, and this is the challenge, there's an ocean of difference between having a nice thought and speaking a nice word. And right there's the decider if we're going to be important people for our neighbour.

Big or small government and paying taxes

The American election is now over. And the world sighs with relief. It used to be said that the US presidential election was often more important the a countrys own election, such is or was the influence of the US. These days perhaps what happens in China should be watched more closely.

A lot in the US battle centered on taxes and big or small government. As a European living in Latin-America I can feel I have a comment on that.

My home country Sweden is a typical big-government country, probably enormous by american standards :-) The post world war Sweden was built on a kind of cradle to grave mentality, where the state was involved in every level. The social democratic vision was one of equality and erasing poverty, among other things. These days we pay a lot of tax, at least 35% of your income and in return receive services like health insurance for all, free schools, care of the elderly etc 

My current country, Paraguay, sounds like a big government when you read the laws, but in reality it's a small government place riddled with corruption. It has one of the worst school systems in the world, the general health care is of low quality and a lot of people lack any kind of health insurance, and we could go on. But if you have money, well that is a different matter, then the doors are open for you.

Paraguay lacks any kind of income tax and Sweden has at least 35%, and after more than two years I know which I prefer!

The disconnect experience

Living in a foreign country makes me realise a bit more what it is that makes me feel at home and comfortable. And it isn't the big things, like having somewhere nice  to live. It's the small things. Like knowing a good place to go on a day off with the kids. Having someone that invites you to their birthday party. Knowing what shop to go to when you need something. Bumping in to someone you used to know. Going to a family event.

What happened to us is that we packed our bags with our 24 kg of allowed luggage and sat down on that plane, and in that moment we left all these little small connections that made up our lives in Sweden. They're still there, we're just not really connected to them at the moment. And when we stepped out of Asunción Airport, we had none of them there. There were none of these little small things. It all had to start again. 

I don't think our experience was in any way different or more difficult than anyone else's. We had some good things and some challenges, but it definitely could have been worse. But it seems to me that the experience of disconnect sort of hangs together with that journey on that air plane with your life in that bag. In that way landing is always difficult.

This weekend I had two experiences related to this, one of connect and one of disconnect. The first one was a "quince", the celebration of a girls 15th birthday. It's a really big deal here, and we were honoured to be invited. We know the family from our previous work assignment, and it that way it was a part of our very short history here. Connect.

The other one happened on our way back to Asunción from the town we work in, about 45 km away. There were people sitting by the road all the way into the city, loads of them. In groups drinking the terere and obviously waiting for something. And I had no idea why they were there, none at all. Disconnect. The best guess was that they were watching the cars and trucks coming back from the Chaco rally that weekend, obviously a tradition and obviously something "people do". But I had no idea.

I would say that so far this has been one of the greatest challenges of living in a different country. But, as we know, God is good, and the connections are growing even at this moment :-)

 

The gift of repentance

Many of us long for change, in ourselves or other people, and are working hard to see it happen. In the churches we spend a lot of energy trying to change people that don’t really seem to want to be changed, and it can leave us frustrated. Despite our best efforts, the status quo remains.

Lately a biblical theme relating to this has been on my mind: repentance. I believe that this theme is one key to live in peace with our frustrations. Repentance in the Christian understanding means to change course or attitude, it’s the realization that I’ve been on the wrong path and I didn’t know it. It’s often accompanied by feelings of regret and sadness as we realize that we’ve hurt people, sinned against God or just screwed up in general. Those feelings are important because they propel us into changing, not just feeling sorry. Repentance is complete when we have changed, our thinking and our behavior. (a process that 3DM call the Circle)

What is key to remember for us is the repentance is a work of the Holy Spirit, not of our actions. It’s a gift, not the result of persuasion. And because of that it’s powerful, see Acts 10 for an example. The Spirit can break thru to the most proud person, pick a hole in the strongest armor and bypass our usual self-justifications.

Because it’s a work of God, we can’t do it. If He doesn’t do it, there won’t be any repentance. If He does, there will be the opportunity for change. But we can’t. And in that there’s rest. Where we sense the presence of repentance, we should press in, but where there isn’t we should do our piece and then wait. Much like with the Person of Peace in Luke 10.

With a little deeper thinking about this, perhaps we would have little less frustrations, what do you think?

Anyone want to start a factory?

The other day I sat with a woman, a neighbour to the church, and talked about the survey we just begun. It's a simple survey about the needs in the community, only five questions long. Her answer to the question "what is missing in Benjamin Aceval?" was: Work. She didn't need to say more, I got it. There is very little work opportunities in the area, only some factories in the nearby town of Villa Hayes. To work you have to go to Asunción, to work in houses, or to the big cattle ranches in the Chaco wilderness.

What struck me today is what difference a factory would make to life here. A simple production factory, low tech, that would employ 50 people, and had a bit of a conscience, could transform the life of maybe 250-500 people. Follow my thought if you will.

To be able to support their family, many men leave their families for months at a time to go the the Chaco. Or alternatively get jobs with enormously long hours, like the security guards that normally have twelve hour shifts, plus travelling  time over an hour each way, often seven days a week. Or, they leave for good and start what they call here a second family. The result of this is absent fathers in the home. And mothers, that more often than not, themselves need to work long hours in the homes of other people.

The social impact of this is enormous. A colleague of mine said that 4 out 5 Paraguayan households are run by single mothers. If they are working, there might be grandmothers to pick up the care for the children. Or there might not. There is nothing from the state. In short, there are many kids without any oversight, especially since school is only 4 hrs a day. Add to that the unemployment connected to alcoholism and general insecurity in the workplace.

A new factory in Benjamin Aceval, with 50 employees from the town, which ran reasonable hours, did not exploit it's workers and paid at least minimum wage, could really change some of this. It could mean that some people didn't have to leave the families for so long, or have much shorter days, which would help family life. It could provide 50 households with a stable income.

If you would add to that any kind of benefits, remember that Paraguay does not have national health insurance, like reading classes or the chance to finish up to sixth grade, any kind of child care, stipends for further education, basic health education, etc you could really have an impact.

These days this seems to be called "Business as Mission". Basically it's business people doing what they do with the purpose of creating welfare and prosperity that help change peoples lives. We could use some of these people here.

Dealing with a very local life

Life for many people in Benjamin is very local. And I mean VERY local. When we had a thing for Mothers Day, the children commented that some of their mothers never left their house, and getting them to come was a real treat. Asunción, the capital is inly about 40 km away and accessible by bus, but some have never been there. The town has 15000 inhabitants, not very small but certainly not big, yet many people complain about the distances, walking a few blocks could be considered far. Basically, if you're not working and especially if you don't have a motor bike, you're not moving far, your house and street is often your world.

This affects church life. In response some pastors, like in many places, have "reuniones caseras", meetings in homes, mostly on weekdays. This appears to be popular and neighbours have the opportunity to come by. It gives the opportunity for people who can't or won't leave their streets to listen to the Word and fellowship. We have been thinking about this as well, since we also have contact with people that have a transport issue. And being used to working with house groups and such it's natural to us.

But the complaint from some pastors about these meetings is not that they don't work, it's that the people that come to these meetings don't then come to church, and some of the church members that attend also stop going to the services. And because of that some pastors stop with the meetings, slightly annoyed at times.

I have reflected about this. And it seems to me a bit like the difference between boxing and judo. You can confront something you don't like straight on, like in boxing, and spend a lot of power defeating your opponent. Or you can use the the movement of your opponent and bend it in your direction, like in judo.

Because if you take out the goal "people should go to the service in the church" from the equation, the problem disappear. If you instead work from a perspective that the group that gather in the home is in reality a small church, then the local life is no longer a problem. If you don't treat the meeting as a recruitment point for the "real church", which happens on Sundays, but as something that can grow and function as a New Testament church in it's own right, then you have bent the local mindset in your direction. And as such the culture can become an asset, not a hinder.

As we haven't tried this yet, it's more of a theory, but I'll come back and report the developments. A great thing about being a church planter / missionary is that we have a mandate to try new things, as long as we're happy to fail at times!

Teaching or implementing?

The other day I met up with some pastors and one of them shared that he was working with the book The Purposedriven Church by Rick Warren. But, ha added quickly, what he did was he was preaching through it in the services. I reflected on that afterwards, because I think it's something that we often do, as leaders. We teach things, explain things, share books we have read, or we go to conferences and seminars and hear about stuff. But we don't actually put it to practice.

For example: It's one thing reading The purpose driven church and teach through it, it's something completely different implementing the philosophy of that book, the way of doing things that it describes.

As I reflect more it seems to me that one is the work of a Teacher, an explainer, and the other is the work of a Leader, or perhaps Apostle. Two different approaches, two different personalities. And because in the history of the church we have emphasized Pastors and Teachers, carers and explainers, we find it easier to talk about stuff rather than doing the stuff. We don't actually expect that things will change, even though we might talk about change. A way of doing things like Warrens book describes, or any other way really, requires the whole church to change in a quite profound manner. It's hard work.

But it seems to be that it's work that needs to be done if churches are going to evolve and grow. We're trying to do that now. slowly introducing new ways of thinking, showing them, repeating them a million times, because that's what it takes. We don't use Warrens model, but we have a pretty clear picture what we want to see, and talking about is just one part of the process, practicing it is the key.

Learning from life

This blog is bi-lingual; it has a twin in Spanish. Most of the time I write in English and translate to Spanish (Yes Google is a part of it *blush*) But this time I did the other way around because I wanted to describe a tool we’re using in our work. It’s called the Circle, and is a part of the Lifeshapes developed in an Anglican church in England and now spread over the world. More info on www.weare3d.com.

There are excellent summaries of the Circle on-line so I’ll be brief. It’s basically a learning circle, like Kolb’s, which has been cross-pollinated with the notion of discipleship in the teaching of Jesus. A disciple was of course a learner, and the Circle is a tool to keep us learning from the things that happens in our life.

The process has two sides; I often use the parable of the two houses in Matt 7 to illustrate them. One person hears the message of Jesus and acts on it, and gets a stable life; another hears but does not act and have fragile life, basically. One side is called Repentance, because it’s most often about changing direction or thinking. The basic question on this side is “What is God saying to me thru this?” 

The first side has three steps: Observe, which basically means realizing that something special happened; Reflect where we ask what this means for me, pray, think and listen; and the third, Discuss, where we check what others can contribute with.

When we feel like we sense what’s the message we can move over to the left side where the first step is Plan. We need something concrete to do as a response. Easy and preferably just one thing. Because we so easily fool ourselves we need to make ourselves accountable to someone that can ask us the question “How’s it going?” And finally, the cruncher, Act. To do what we planned.

If we go through the whole Circle our lives will change a little according to will of God. If we do it regularly it will change a lot :-)

We realize that to keep the dynamic part of our relationship to God we need to keep on learning, changing and listening. The Circle helps us with that. Nothing new really, just an easy form. It actually coincides with the first chapters in the material we already use for new Christians.

Together before going out

I am blessed with a wonderful wife, who very often see things that I don't. We were praying the other day and I was thinking about how to relate more to the people around us in the town. So far we have been working mostly with the people in the church, some that used to be in the church and their friends. I don't want to get stuck there, and it's easy to do that. Especially I'm interested in the Catholicism here and how to relate to it. No doubt subject for another post.

As we were talking however my wife cautioned me saying that "we need somewhere to bring people to". That somewhere doesn't have to be a building or meetings, but more like an environment, relationships, a community. Being married for over 20 years I recognized the wisdom.

Today I bumped into this blogpost where Ben Sternke argues for "centralization-before-decentralization". He writes: "Discipleship is the “intense centralization” process that happens before the “decentralization” of mission. Discipleship is where the core values are hammered out, where people are socialized into a new way of life before being “turned loose” to join Jesus in the renewal of all things."
 
That is probably where we're at. We have to build more internal first, disciple as it were. Especially here where the system hasn't really been geared for mission and growth, more for attendance.

The challenge is that often we teach and preach about these things, we give information, but that rarely changes peoples lives. I'm doing a course with 3DM and the have a illustration of this:

The point is that information must be followed by imitation, practice with someone, before we get a life that reaches other lives. And that's the challenge folks, living a life worth imitating and sharing that.

Who to lead?

At the moment we are meeting with people in Benjamin who has been part of this church or another. As we are getting to know them the issue of ministry, leadership, doing something in the church comes up. And a lot of times about leading worship. It seems like the outlet of the energy for young people has been leading worship, or being part of the worship band.

Who to lead is one of the most important issues we face when planting or restarting a church. A good leader can be a real blessing but a bad one can seriously hinder growth and development.  So what to look for? Well here are three things I’m thinking about at the moment:

1. Character. Always more important than gifting. But gifting is more apparent and attractive. But without character and good attitude it can be a real pain. Choosing the person who is a little less talented but with a good character always pays off in the long run.
2. In process. With this I mean that the person is aware of their own weaknesses and sins and that they are a person in a process of change, sanctification. Brokeness over ones own sins almost automatically gives an merciful attitude to others. The opposite, a person who feels ready with themselves and would like to change others gives of a perfectionistic atmosphere which is very unattractive.
3. Relationship. It’s important in church to first connect on the level of being brothers and sisters in Christ, like it’s important in life to connect to anyone firstly as a human being created by God. Being brothers and sisters doesn’t involve work, so that kind of meeting, call it meeting between pilgrims, has a different flavor to it. After that comes the task. Without the relationship foundation the work is too vulnerable to conflict, as there are no base for communication and resolution.

I’m sure theres more, but these are my thoughts today J Never rush into these things, people deserve good leaders, children even more. Resist the temptation to “fill the gaps to make the machinery work”, they’re worth it!

Wanted: Nice words

We all know the nice feeling when we receive a compliment. Someone says something nice about our clothes, joke or gift, and we feel good, loved, and we can do more, dare the next challenge. And to make things better: nice words are free. They cost nothing. Free. And anyone can practice them: we do not need education or diploma and or be smart. Sounds easy, right?

Unfortunately it seems that many people live with many ugly words. They pull down. It seems more normal to say the negative. Or mix. In many conversations this happens: Someone says something positive, "yes, she is very good, does many nice things" and then comes the "but", "but she can not manage your money" or something. It's like you feel you need to balance things out.

The worst is that this is common with Christians as well. The sins and weaknesses of others comes very quickly in any conversation. A lack of generosity.

Do I seem tired? Maybe a little. I think that a life with more generosity and nice words would be easier to live.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things."

Information and inslulated systems

I'm reading The Unshackled Organization, by Jeff Goldstein, a 1994 book on how to apply the science of self organizing systems and non-linearity found in nature, to organizations and groups. It has the inviting subtitle: Facing the Challenge of Unpredictability Through Spontaneous Reorganization.

So far, what I get of it, he argues that contrary to popular opinion, groups and organizations want to change, or it's in their nature to change. It's part of their "non-linearity". Goldstein claims: "What is radically new about the self-organization perspective is that a work group or organization as a natural system will spontaneously know how to reorganize in the face of a challenge, if the obstacles hindering its capacity to self-organize are removed." 

On of the things that keeps the group in "equilibrium", standing still, is "the refusal to admit new information into the system". The group, whether an organisation, company or a smaller unit like a family, is insulated from receiving new information, therefore whatever happens will be interpreted according to the old ways of thinking, what Goldstein calls "self fulfilling prophesies". 

We must not think by this he means that the group lives on a deserted island cut off from everything, he means that information and "data" are different things. Data is fact and figures, "I am tired", without relationship to the other members of the group. Information would be "I am tired because my boss sent me to do this job". Goldstein defines it like this: "Information...refers to the knowledge that is available to a system of its own functioning, of the arrangements of it's parts, where each element is and what is doing". It's basically the members being able to reflect upon themselves and how they are working, as a group.

Standing still systems tend to diminish or defend themselves from this kind of information, the reflective kind. But in order to see change we need to let new information in, understanding about the group in the context of it's environment. This triggers the self reorganization, that would be a major point in the book.

Enough of the book. What triggered me with this passage was the experience of it, how groups, families and churches can't get out of their self-image and develop, they're stuck with the same problem definitions almost forever. They're closed as a system, and other people, a members or outsiders, that offer a different view, are excluded or censored in different ways. The reflection: "Isn't this a little weird" is of course very threatening for a leader that is just trying to deal with a situation.  This seems to be especially difficult in a culture like the Latin American cultures which are very hierarchical, free flow of reflections are really very rare. So far.

A positive example of this principle was a project that my convention, Interact, did together wit the Paraguayan convention we're working with. It was funded by the Swedish government (!) (My tax money at work) and was aimed at organizational development. It resulted in a lot of paper and goals and so forth, but it seems to me that what really made a difference afterwards was that the process gave the organization tools and time to self-reflect, to let new information into the system. And this the results of that are still emerging.

What to learn? 

• Always welcome other peoples reflections, even if they seem weird or from the "wrong" people", sift later
• If you lead a group, allow time and help them to reflect about how they work as a group and how they relate to their environment.
• Information, in this sense, will release change by itself.

The dream connection

It happened again! During the days we worked on renovating the house, see earlier post, I chatted with one of the guys I've never met before. Not assuming he was a Christian I asked him a bit about how he viewed life. It turned out he didn't belong to any church, unusual in Paraguay, and didn't seem to want to. Fine with me, we were just talking. And then it came: he started to tell me about a dream he had a few weeks ago, which connected to another dream he's had three times in his life, the same one! And suddenly we were talking about fulfilling our life's destinies.

This is not the first time that the subject of dreams has been the bridge into talking about faith. In fact, I have come to believe that most people have one or more significant dream in their life that their looking for the answer to. And many people dream regularly dreams that they know are more than just the processing of their daily experiences. It's often enough to show yourself open to the dream world and interested in listening, the rest comes by itself.

Sadly this dimension of the Christian life seems to have been lost somewhere. That God speaks through dreams is obvious in the Bible, to all kinds of people. it has been and still is a vital part of the spiritual life of many believers and churches. But especially in the West, and the continents we have "blessed" with our theology the interest in dreams really have been lost. Usually you have several hindrances to go through:
- Pastors are sometimes afraid that people will put their experiences over the Word, and are therefore reluctant to speak about dreams.
- Many of them have bad experiences with dreams and misinterpretations. Most ministers have met what someone called "the flaky fringe", often immature people that use spirituality to avoid dealing with issues in their life.
- Most of us pastors doesn't have any training in how to deal with dreams. We simply don't know what to do with dreams.
- The people who DO teach on dreams often come from the "wrong" part of the church. They tend to be either charismatics or catholics/high church or Jungian psychologists. Or a mix of these.

For these and many other reasons we are not really equipped to deal with dreams, neither do we have routines in our churches for them. So we are quite deaf in this area. Which is sad, because it seems to me that God is using this way of speaking to people a lot these days.

Ironically, I personally hardly remember any of my dreams and usually don't listen to God in that way. Go figure.

The unavoidability of buildings

Tomorrow I'm going to do something I didn't think I would do, ever really. I will welcome a work crew and together we will renovate the church buildings, primarily the "casa pastoral", the pastors house. Two days intensive work they think, I honestly don't have a clue.

My ministry background is city, we've always been in ministry situations that focused on relationships, buildings were always rented and functional. Building houses, spending money and energy maintain church buildings has never been on the agenda. It's not really a cool thing to do, doesn't show up on the seminar list of the church planting conference really. In fact, one might argue that some new movements get their energy from being critical of these things, it's their point of reference in a negative way. A bit of an allergy really. That's where I come from.

And now, through an unplanned series of events I'm pastoring in a rural town setting with a classic church building. Ironic and probably God.

As we are discovering this building, and through that what went on before we came, I was reminded about an experience several years ago. Our family visited a monastery ruin in the south of Sweden. Nice as ruins go and even more interesting history wise. The monastery was built in the wilderness, and was meant to spread both the gospel and civilisation. Modern farming techniques, education, trade etc. They had had land and after a while influence in many spheres of society.

As I was walking there the thought came to me: spiritual movements seem to leave physical remnants that remain long after their spiritual strength has waned. Like these ruins. Or schools. Hospitals. Orphanages. Church buildings. In fact in the western world it's hard to think about a significant spiritual movement that has not left a mark in this way. They seem to need infrastructure to channel all that energy and enthusiasm.

Then of course we know the next steps: the energy goes, the maintenance mode kicks in and taking care of the structures becomes a high priority. In our case: the church was just about to shut down, hardly any activity left, but it was still being cleaned every week, with pride. It's easy to be critical at that stage, and wanting to cut out all organisation and structures to avoid getting there. But that doesn't seem to be possible.
The house church movement in England in the 80's soon got organised as the need for training and structure emerged. Revival movements in the past spawn denominations that soon build buildings.The cycle seem to be unavoidable and perhaps natural. So no need for allergy :-)

I doubt I will be pondering that tomorrow as we change the roof in 35 degrees heat, but in Gods ever-changing education of us there always seem to be new perspectives to be learnt.

When He goes before

I got a troubled start in my Christian life, at least when it comes to evangelism. In my early teens I really wanted to be a good Christian and tried to apply what I learned in church and the youth campaigns I participated in. However, I distinctly remember the task of “personal evangelism” more as a burden then an opportunity. My feeling of it, not that anyone actually said it like that, was that we had been delivered a parcel, a product, and now it was up to us to “sell” it, present it pretty much on our own. And you had to present the whole parcel as well, preferably at the same time, for example by using the famous “bridge-illustration”. Such was my feeling and as a young teenager it was quite a lot to carry. Sadly I’ve discovered I’m not the only one who has had that feeling.

But now when we are entering a new work, I have a different feeling. Instead of feeling left alone with a difficult task, I feel like we’re following someone else, looking for what is already prepared. Instead of feeling that I have to deliver something prepacked, I understand that I am part of a process that I neither started nor will see the end of. Clearly, this is quite a different scenario.

Let me give you some biblical background that encourages me to see it this way:

• In several stories in both the Old and the New Testament God has prepared people, without the main character knowing it. We find a classic example 1 Kings 17:9-16 where God had already prepared a person to provide for Elijah. Later in the book the same prophet feels very much alone, but God has 7000 men already in mind, 1 Kings 19:18.

• We cannot come to know God without God pulling us first (John 6:44). God has the initiative all the way through the salvation process. He is the one that is looking, pulling, searching, we might experience it a different way, but in the reality that’s the way it is.

•  Jesus instruction to his disciples in Luke 10, especially verse 6, indicates that people are prepared or not, but that is not the disciples worry. If they get a good reception they stay, if not they move on. Jesus teaching on the four soils, for example in Matthew 13, presupposes that people’s hearts are different and therefore reacts differently to the gospel. But it’s not the disciple’s job to prepare the soil, only to sow the seed. The preparation is obviously someone else’s work.

We could go on. Really it’s about having a big view of God and understanding the process of salvation, neither which I had as a younger me. But know when we enter this work we are looking out for the ones God has prepared, for the people where he has already worked the soil. And that’s a wholly different experience.

Content and process

It seems to me that there are two sides to our teaching and training in the church. The first is content, the substance of the faith. The other one is process, what we do as followers of Jesus.

Most of the material that I've seen for people that are just beginning their Christian life is focused on content,  with questions like: Who is this God, who is man and who is Jesus Christ, just to mention a few. Laid out according to varying ways of learning, naturally. Some has been plain books, perhaps with a study guide after each chapter (does anyone ever use these?), some are more fill in the blanks stuff, some are group material, other individual. But they are geared to get as much content into the heads as possible.

The supposition is, probably: "If they understand it, they will do it." The teachers dream world naturally :-)

Now I like teaching, reading and all that. I'm a content kind of guy. I really wish that the world would work in the above way. In that way we could just make a better power-point, use a better illustration, or even use drama, art and music to transfer our content in a more effective or impacting way.

But it doesn't seem to be like that. It seems to me that the key questions for a dynamic Christian life does not depend on content. What really changes your life in the long run is learning some key processes. The How-to-questions. To do certain things.

What really changes your life in the long run is learning some key processes.

For example: prayer. Very important. A key feature of a life with God. The traditional approach aims at content: What to believe about prayer, foundations in Scripture, promises, various forms of petitions etc. All very valid. However, these days it seems to me that the the key questions about prayer is not the theological ones, but the "how"-questions. How do I pray? What does it feel like? What do I do with the stream of thoughts in my head? Is my attitude OK? Questions like these are not aimed at content, what to believe, but at process, how do I do it. And in the long run, if I don't learn the process of praying, the content won't help me. We could go on, forgiveness, Bible reading, service, all important areas where the key factor in the long run is process, not content.

So what am I learning from this? To balance content and process, but to prioritise process. I believe as well that over-teaching is harmful in the long run. It dulls us and makes us feel like we already know things, and worse, that we already practise things. So I will aim at practise, do things with people and try to restrain my content-side a bit.

The importance of not knowing

A few years back I spoke to some people that were going to move to a new city to plant a church. They were excited and told me that they had a whole wall full of the planning for this plant, the various stages, checkpoints and so on. A year later they told me that almost nothing in their plan had worked. I could identify with that, because exactly the same thing had happened to me: good plan according to the latest book, and no luck in seeing it realised.

I have come to believe that it can be quite dangerous entering a situation thinking that you know how it should be. Because that very conviction can blind us to the new realities, new opportunities and to the prompting of the Holy Spirit. Having the attitude of "I don't know yet" instead forces us to be curious, open and vulnerable, a great place to be if you want to hear from God.

Of course we should not just blunder in without thinking ahead, when we do that we will just do what we've always done, not being open at all. And in some cultures you really need to sit down and think ahead to avoid being fooled by tradition. But at least the western world thinking really likes planning, and tries to master the world through it.

We're in the immersion stage at the moment (yes we are in a stage :-) Which means that we are getting to know, asking questions, being curious, praying prophetically, listening with all kinds of ears that we have. And I am trying very hard to hold fast to this: We don't know yet how God wants to do things.

Welcome to the blog "2½ years"! 

Behind this maybe a bit cryptic name  is a very down to earth situation. We are working as missionaries in Paraguay and have just entered into a new work situation.

In a small town north of Asuncion the Baptist convention we are working with used to have a church. Well, in fact they do still have the church, plus the old church hall and a pastors house, but they don't have a congregation any more. During the last years a faithful few have been keeping up the work until there was only literally a handful left.

Enter us. Our challenge is to restart, resuscitate, plant again or however we can put it, this church. But not only that, there is some special circumstances that gives this challenge an edge.

One. We know when we're leaving. Most pastors don't know that when they enter a new place. We will leave Paraguay in 2½ years, due to our contract and Swedish laws (i.e.. we don't plan to emigrate)

Two. We don't know if there will come anyone after us. The convention suffers from a lack of pastors and workers. Perhaps there will come someone after us, perhaps there will be someone local who can take over with some financial support, or perhaps there will be none.

So this is the challenge:

Build up a church which can be self-sustaining in 2½ years. 

And in this blog I would like to write about the thinking behind this work. It will not be a more traditional missionary blog with photos and regular reports, but reflections, discussions and materials as the work progresses. This blog has a sister in Spanish, which is kind of cheeky as I only speak Spanish since 1½ years, but I would like to share with my Paraguayan friends as well.

So welcome! Feel very free to comment and question, that what this blog is all about and hope that you would like to share a part of this journey!