¡Pura Vida!

A Sad Question

The other day when the South African pastors were at our school one of them asked me who is discipling me.  Remember, their heart and soul is discipleship, discipleship, discipleship.  It's as the Apostle Paul lamented over the Corinthians that they have "ten thousand instructors in Christ but not many fathers."  I've got to admit it was an awkward moment when he asked me that in front of all my students.  I laughed nervously and answered that the director, who was translating for him, was my discipler.  But he didn't buy it as she's, well, a she.  So I laughed and a sad look fell over the man's face.  It reminded me of that scene in Good Will Hunting when Robin Williams, who plays a psychiatrist, has this exchange with Will (Matt Damon):

Doc:  "Do you have someone discipling you?"  (he said "soul-mate" in the movie)
Will:  "Define that."
Doc:  "Someone who challenges you in every way. Who takes you places, opens things up for you."
Will:  "Yeah."  (Doc waits & Will continues) "Shakespeare, Nietzsche, Frost, O'Connor, Chaucer, Pope..."
Doc:  "They're all dead."
Will:  "Not to me they're not."
Doc:  "But you can't give back to them, Will."
Will:  "Not without a heater and some serious smelling salts, no..."

The Importance of Discipleship

Yesterday our school had two guests from the nation of South Africa come and speak to the student body.  The Reverends Landmann and Wilkes were on a speaking tour across the U.S. and graciously included us on their circuit.  The heartbeat of their ministry, the Genesis Forum, is discipleship, and this was the topic they addressed.  Their perspective was so different than what one usually hears about discipleship and I found it deeply fascinating.  It is radical in its simplicity:  every young "Timothy-type" leader in the church needs an older, more mature "Paul-type" mentor to disciple him.  There is no program, no agenda, other than time spent together - eating, walking, working, ministering, traveling, etc. They are set to return in December for a more extended time of teaching so we are eagerly looking forward to it. 

The best news I've heard lately...

This is it!

John Calvin: The Human Lightning Rod

Ok, I get it.  John Calvin is not hip these days.  No surprise - he is (and has been for more than four centuries) the whipping boy of those who valiantly maintain and defend, to borrow a phrase from Hitler and Nietzsche, the triumph of the will (I know, that was below the belt!).   Ahhh, so here we are again with the tricky and perennial predestination vs. freewill debate.  This is what characterizes (and perhaps demonizes) Calvin the most - his staunch defense of God's gracious sovereignty over all things.  However, there's more, much more, to Calvin than what the supralapsarians and infrasupras attribute him!  He was a darn good theologian and philosopher who should be, nay demands to be, read in our times of bubblegum pop feel-good self-realization psychology pabulum that parades itself as theology or "Christian living" as it's now apparently categorized in Christian bookstores.  When I was stateside last December I visited two Christian bookstores in order to pick up a copy of Calvin's Institutes.  To my (non)surprise this tome was nowhere to be found.  Thank God for His gracious provision of Al Gore's internet and especially for wonderful sites like the Christian Classics Ethereal Library where one can download many of the weighty Christian classics (including Jacob Arminius' tantalizing and well-written Works - which are an equally amazing read and should be taken up after surviving the Institutes).  Now the works of these guys are at our fingertips and free of charge - hallelujah!

So, for those of good courage, let us take up Calvin's hefty tome and, once digested, let's tackle Jakob Arminius.  Perhaps to clear our palate in between, we could plunge into the refreshing tales of George MacDonald...?         

Calvary Language School

I was looking at an old calendar the other day, it was one with pictures of the ministry in the previous year. I think the year was 1988 or somewhere around there. I was shocked to see 18 students in the Calvary Language School. 18 future missionaries to Latin America, studying Spanish to go out and preach the gospel in Spanish. Last year when we got here there weren't any students. This year, we had three but one has returned home to Chicago for financial/family reasons. I don't know where else someone could go, live, and study a language for $275. That includes all your food, lodging, and classes. If you know anyone who feels called to Latin America and needs/wants to learn Spanish, have them give me a buzz. It's an incredible opportunity to live, work, study, and experience Mexico in a safe, small town, Christian environment.

Christianity in the Global Context

This semester I'm teaching "Christianity in the Global Context," a course designed to give the Bible School students a greater perspective on how Christianity is flourishing and adapting around the world.  As Phillip Jenkins writes in The Next Christendom:  The Coming of Global Christianity : 
"Over the past century the center of gravity in the Christian world has shifted inexorably southward, to Africa, Asia, and Latin America.   Already today, the largest Christian communities on the planet are to be found in Africa and Latin America.  If you want to visualize a 'typical' contemporary Christian, we should think of a woman living in a village in Nigeria or in a Brazilian favela."  He adds, "Christianity is indeed doing very well in the global South - not just surviving but expanding."     

The Mexican evangelical church now has the opportunity to minister and operate all over the world.  There are many places where American and European missionaries, because of colonial and neocolonial attitudes and barriers, don't have the influence that others such as Mexicans, Brazilians or South Koreans, for example, enjoy.  The locus of not just Christendom, but the sending of missionaries has shifted from Europe and North America to the global South.  In fact, these missionaries are now even coming to the post-Christian West (Europe and North America).  This is truly a seismic shift which will be further developed as this new century progresses.

Pic at right:  Pastor David Avila, our pastor here in Mexico, ministering to brothers in Hyderabad, India.      

Flexibility is key!

They say that the number one rule of missions is FLEXIBILITY. I do think that is the key to success when living in Latin America, but it also is key to living in the US. Today we had a group of 87 young people show up with little notice. They did call the other day and say they would need a place to sleep, on our auditorium floor, but they didn't mention that they would need to eat (their leader didn't communicate correctly and wasn't with them to tell us what was going on). What would you do if that many people showed up and needed a meal? Well, here in Mexico, they just rolled with it. No one stressed out, no one freaked... everyone just pitched in to make a great dinner and served them with a smile. It reminds of me Martha and Mary, when Martha was so dang busy that she didn't enjoy the blessing of having Christ in her home. How many times do we freak out because we aren't flexible and miss out on the blessing of having someone over? Or how many times have we let our inflexibility rob us of the joy of serving someone?

Army Day Celebration, Barrio Karradah, Baghdad 01-06-08

Chairman Mao once said that
P O W E R
comes out of the barrel of a
G U N . . .
but isn't hope stronger than that? 
Perhaps in hope this man placed the rose in
the barrel . . . so tenderly . . . and

embraced the soldier . . .

before a sudden      E X P L O S IO N
put the fragile hope to the test:

And a greater man once said, And these things abide -

F A I T H . . .

H O P E . . .

and  L O V E . . . 

   

but the greatest of these is love.

Greg's (not Oprah's) Reading Club

One of the things we wanted to do in 2008 was, well, something different with our blog.  One thing I (Greg) have always wanted to do has been to host an online reading group or book club.  Being the serious, academic type that I am, this book club will probably not be for everybody.  So...without further ado...our first reading selection is, as I announced in an earlier post, John Calvin's 1536 magnum opus INSTITUTES OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION.  You can read it for free online thanks to the wonderful folks at the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.  If you're really an egghead intellectual you may want to read his Latin version, the Institutio Christianae Religionis (we won't think less of you if the Latin's too daunting for you...).

Because of the immense size of this tome, I'll give my reading selections by the week.
Week 1 (all links below are in html, not PDF):

SUBJECT OF THE WORK
EPISTLE TO THE READER
METHOD & ARRANGEMENT
GENERAL INDEX OF CHAPTERS
FIRST BOOK:  THE KNOWLEDGE OF GOD
Read the first TEN chapters

Feel free to post comment here if you have any thoughts about the material.  If we need to find a bulliten board site or something more conducive to discussion posts then we can move it.  Happy reading!!!

Our Cool New Hobby

Thanks to Jan's sister Jodi, we now have a very cool new hobby.  NO, it's not larping!!!  It's something called letterboxing.  What is letterboxing?    According to wikipedia, letterboxing is an outdoor hobby that combines elements of orienteering, art and puzzle solving. Letterboxers hide small, weatherproof boxes in publicly-accessible places (like parks) and distribute clues to finding the box in printed catalogs, on one of several web sites (we use Atlas Quest), or by word of mouth. Individual letterboxes usually contain a logbook and a rubber stamp. Finders make an imprint of the letterbox's stamp on their personal logbook, and leave an impression of their personal stamp on the letterbox's logbook — as proof of having found the box. Many letterboxers keep careful track of their "find count".

So today "the Saplings" as we call ourselves, ventured out into the cold, windswept wilds of Concord, North Carolina with the Draper kids and, using our puzzle-solving and orienteering skills, located two hidden letterboxes.  We had a great time and, best of all, it's a free activity that also happens to be fun.  Who can argue with that?