Worldly Holiness

Before I share my prayer requests with you, let me report on my blog entries for this last month to entice you. This will be a place to get regular news, stories and pictures of our life and ministry here in Spain. So, this month, I’ve included a story about a significant, kind of historical event for the Covenant in Spain—our first ordination service. The pictures in my Flickr file feature Montserrat, a monastery in the hills above Barça (that is short for Barcelona in Catalan), the Boqueria market downtown, my trip to La Coruña, a few reminders from back home, and an assortment of other pics. Please, feel free to leave comments or begin a discussion along the lines of one of my posts. I’d like to generate some discussion. Give me feedback too. Tell others about it.

Now for the prayer and praise requests:

• We praise God for being almost totally settled now in our new digs. We still need to get some pictures up and find the post office but we are getting there. Pray as we begin to establish our weekly rhythm of life & ministry. It can be lonely starting fresh. We’d like to establish some regular ministry contacts as we continue to discern long-term strategy and make some good friendships.

• Andy found a place to begin language study with someone from Syria. Pray for good learning and ability to build relationships of trust. I hope to start this after returning from travels in November.

• Pray for attendance at an important conference this month, for good networking, personal refreshment and inspiration. We are trying to figure out how to best contextualize our ministry goals for our focus groups in Europe.

• Pray for Carol’s role in ministry. She is trying to find the best place to serve with her gifts and capacities as therapist, counselor and friend of the needy besides being a mother, wife, study partner for Erick and travel agent for the entire family.

• Continue to pray for our visas. There is still no word from the consulate in San Francisco and we’d like to establish a more permanent status here in Spain.

• We look forward to being together as a family for Christmas. Continue to pray for Nicki in Ecuador and Kjel in Chicago, for health, their studies, work and future. They both are coming to a big crossroads in their lives and need to make some decisions.

• Lastly, pray for successful fundraising as we approach the holidays. We left the country at around 80% supported for the entire 3 year project. It would be nice to get to 100% so we can sustain our ministry and focus without distraction. Pray for our holiday newsletter, that God would touch hearts as we communicate the vision.

Bless you all for praying!

In point of fact, today it seems the map for a vital Christian life follows a different pattern. One can be inward or outward in their expression of spirituality, but does not need to be both. We can be specialists. One can be either heavenly minded or earthly good. It looks something like this. The option perhaps most emphasized today as an evangelical, is the path of being fully devoted to action, a political or moral cause, and to getting things done. Those that show special promise are invited into leadership positions where they can lead the troop of Christian doers! I’m exaggerating a bit to prove a point. Admittedly, there are people in leadership on the action side of the equation who are also devoted to prayer and the cultivation of spiritual habits. These are people who have a compass more than a weather vane to guide their lives, in my humble opinion. Nevertheless, the point can be made that more and more we are challenged to be action oriented. Less important are the skills of interpreting spiritual traditions, or understanding and working with the inner map of the soul—or asking the vital questions of what action we should be engaged in to begin with. The action pathway focuses on getting my hands dirty.

The alternative path, less emphasized in my tradition, stresses going into my inner closet where I focus on prayer, study of scripture and spiritual disciplines. There actually seems to be a healthy corrective in this direction today in some quarters of the evangelical tradition, finally learning from our Catholic friends. My only concern is that we may miss the point if we focus on specialization and alternative options in our approach to spirituality, where the inward piece becomes unique to an individuals’ path, an option for some that we can pick if we are so wired, but not a norm of faithful discipleship. Needless to say, I am not satisfied with this schizophrenic, either-or approach to the spiritual life. As I have pursued my disquiet over the years, I found that my particular tradition, the Evangelical Covenant Church, provided some great historical models and theology for integration even if my experience in the church has not always encouraged bringing these two poles together. Curiously, the topic found expression in my undergraduate studies and a fascination with the Jesuits almost 30 years ago. Today, it continues to show up in my doctoral dissertation which focuses on developing a “holy worldliness” [see "Deep Stuff" in this blog listed above]. I’m still trying to live with the tension of living an Inward-Outward Journey. Stayed tuned to these pages. Contribute some of your thoughts. Look at the pictures. Pray–and follow the Lord as you serve others and meet the needs in our world.

Andrés

Last Sunday (now 2 Sundays ago) I had the wonderful opportunity of being part of the first ordination service in Spain for the Covenant church. The Sunday service of ordination was the culmination of three intense days of interviewing, praying and discussing issues of leadership, ordination and ministry in this context of my new home—Spain! A curious piece, very curious I might add, was the fact that all but two of our seven candidates were from Latin America. This is a trend that I had read about but only began to grasp as I listened to the stories and got to know our new church leaders in Spain. I had the privilege of being with this group as invited guest to an add-hoc ordination committee. Wow, what a blessing. I got goose bumps as I listened to our youngest candidate share of her vision to serve in medical missions in India. Her story of faith and obedience put me to shame. Her father and mother, also involved in separate interviews, had established an agency to support Latin American missionaries and were already supporting in part twelve missionary couples serving in different places around the world. Another candidate who had served in Brazil, as well as Argentina, Italy, and Spain, gave me a shirt from Brazil for the ordination service. I had not planned well in my packing for the trip. A fellow missionary loaned me a tie he had purchased in Africa. There I stood in the ordination service, reading scripture in Spanish, wearing a shirt from Brazil, a tie from Kenya, and underwear from the United States. Maybe I should just say I had an American passport.

All of this struck me. This is the work God has called me to at this time. He has called servants from many cultures to serve him in proclaiming the Gospel to many places. What a privilege. It is an exciting time to be alive. Let me paint a picture of what God seems to be up to. Think of my wardrobe last Sunday as a metaphor. Latin Americans [my shirt from Brazil, the candidates in the interviewing] are being called to serve in places like Africa and India [my tie from Kenya and story of Laura], spending time in Spain for further training and experience alongside missionaries, in the context of the local church in Spain. I am not the lone American missionary in an important mission with the Mosaics Project [see Mosaics Bio], but rather part of a larger thing that God is doing in the world. I am in partnership with others. I really, really thank God for that. It is such a privilege and honor. It is also very fascinating and freeing to know that I step in to the larger picture of what God is doing, to play a part and depend on Him—and you! I am here because of people´s faithful prayer and financial support. This seems to be the pattern God uses when he is doing mission in the world. Read Romans 15:22-29 today. It is not exactly my story but it is very similar. Pray for us, that we may fulfill what God has called us to in these days. Pray that God will give us an open door with our focus groups here in Barcelona.

Mil Gracias!