I’ve just recently concluded a wonderful trip full of ministry highlights and reflections that I will share with you over the next week or so with some video highlights of various aspects of the trip as well. I will start with the incredible serendipity that came across my path the last Sunday before returning to Seattle.
Gypsies Singing at a Baptism in Malaga, Spain, July 12th, 2009
I went to the church in Malaga, Spain where our friends and colleagues, Eugenio & Pia Restrepo, are currently serving. One of Eugenio’s ministries is to give leadership support and theological training to the leaders of this movement of gypsies. We found out at worship that they were having a special baptismal service in the Mediterranean later in the afternoon. Long story short, we were invited to participate and enjoy the afternoon with them. Below is a video I took of the choral group that sang throughout the ceremony for the baptism. They had beautiful, powerful voices that sang with deep pathos and feeling. More later…
Well, I haven’t finished my “Common Word†report yet because some other exciting things have come to the front burner since coming back from California. Last Friday I was the guest speaker at a local mosque, addressing the community gathered for Friday prayers. You heard right. This picture is not THAT particular mosque as many of you might know, unless of course I was speaking last Friday in Istanbul. My two sons just visited this city, but that is another story.
About a month ago I spent the good part of an afternoon with an Imam in the Seattle area for a great conversation, with another friend. This was one of those times when that certain “click†just happens and for one reason or another, or perhaps all of them together, we went deep fairly quickly. Near the end of our conversation I got this amazing invitation to come as a guest to the mosque to speak on some issues on Christian-Muslim relations. The agenda evolved a bit in the intervening time but last week it took shape. The Imam wanted me to address his gathered community during Friday prayers with the following questions: “why is there such a negative view of Muslims in the Christian Church? and what is your church doing to help change that predominant view?†More generally he wanted me to lead a discussion on how we could both minimize the negative perceptions of each other that are fostered by minority, fringe groups in our respective religions?
As you can imagine, these questions were somewhat delicate so I tried to tell my personal journey from ignorance of Islam to a better understanding and new respect for Muslims. I told the story of how I seek to help churches understand Islam better by teaching classes, and building bridges with local Muslim communities, etc. I also shared about what I learned through building friendships with Muslims. Then I told the story of a Palestinian shop owner I met in Jerusalem last year who was bitter about injustices that his people regularly suffer. That seemed to hit home. Maybe because it has hit me and is a growing burden. I also asked for their forgiveness if they had ever experienced painful or negative things at the hand of Christians.
They initially didn’t know how to respond to my confession. I really kind of bared my soul to them. There was an awkward moment of silence and then a string of spontaneous responses from the crowd across the main prayer room. The Spirit of God seemed to be especially present. We finished up the formal session with some Q & A, engaging me and another guest, a Catholic priest, in discussion and dialogue. Get this, after all of that, we were invited to another room for snacks, cookies and tea and I joined my 8 other Christian friends who accompanied me in multiple conversations until about midnight. The topics of conversation ranged from Middle East politics to who Jesus is and what is the nature of sin in each others’ faith tradition. I also heard the Imam declare in one circle that violence has nothing to do with Islam, that terrorists have a political agenda and do not represent true Islam. When I step back and ponder all that happened, I’m really quite amazed, blessed, and excited to see where God leads next in these relationships and conversations.
Let me know if you’d like to join me in the mosque sometime. It just happens to be one of the places where discussions on life and faith, between Christians and Muslims are getting pretty dynamic for me these days. And I really, really love it. My new friends have extended an open door to continue the conversations and relationships. One thing for sure, Muslims understand hospitality and we seem to keep coming around to talking about Jesus somehow.
Well, the Larsen boys are back from our adventures, Erick to Oman and me to Malta. I haven't gotten the full run down yet from Erick, but understand that things went well for him with some new understanding of that part of the world and friendships.
I am a little tired from my time in Malta. It was a full packed schedule with keynote speakers, smaller workshops on many topics like media, member care issues [that means the stuff we all deal with living and ministering in our context, cross-culturally, that may require some special assistance], etc. There was a core track woven throughout the conference that featured ministry highlights from each country across the region. This was very helpful in giving a bird’s eye view of what God is doing and who the players are. I was able to also engage in a ton of networking with others focusing on this region and type of ministry with our focus people. The value of this last piece is huge and will have implications down the road as the Mosaics project takes more definitive shape and we grasp our specific roles in the panorama of ministry options. My time with colleague, Ken S. [ www.mosaicsworld.blogspot.com ] was also very good. We spent a lot of time debriefing some of the keynote sessions and explored important questions for our own ministry. And we networked. A lot of new ideas and crucial connections.
Ken and I, sometimes along with Erik Amundsen [son of Byron and Judy, our bosses in Mission Headquarters in Chicago…well not really “bosses”], got out in the community a few times to see the area, have a good cappuccino [see pictures to the side] and refresh our minds before we went back into sessions at the conference. This was an important aspect of our time to maintain our sanity. After all, the mind and heart can only absorb as much as the butt can endure! Malta is an interesting place that has a long history of military campaigns being fought on their small but strategic piece of land in the middle of the Mediterranean. The ones who were most recently on top were the British. That explains why they drove on the wrong side of the street, spoke English well, and had these old buses [photo] from England in the bus fleet. Maltese, the native language is a Semitic language put to a Latin alphabet. Very interesting.
By the way, Malta is not the piece of land at the end of the boot of Italy that I mistakenly mentioned in my last post before I left. That would be Sicily. How dumb of me. Malta is at the end of the soccer ball, much smaller, and is what they call an “archipelago!” Look that one up on Wikipedia. While you are there look up Malta and you will find some fascinating history. Well, I better get back to unpacking and sorting. You could take that to mean my clothes, as well as all the business cards and little pieces of paper with important contact information on them in my shirt pockets, backpack and who knows where else. If you’d like an issue related report from the conference, let me know and I can email that to you. As always, leave a comment or send a greeting. You can also find a set of 55 photos from my trip in the flickr site to the right.
Last night we hung with our friends from Cataluña and Latin America at our place for tapas & Christmas Carols. The night before it was with our Scandanavian friends and glug. Altogether we´ve ¨hung¨ with people from 12 different countries over the last two weeks. For us that is a small taste of heaven! Somewhere in this last week it was shopping downtown on Las Ramblas. I couldn´t resist making this little mosaic with the colors of Christmas and the wonderful variety of people God has brought across our path. So, this is just a little visual of our lives this Christmas in Barcelona. We send our love and wishes for a wonderful time with family and friends, trusting also that you have time for reflection on how God has blessed and where you are on the journey. We hope to see snow in the Pyrenees next week as we travel with our kids to France for a few days. It is a joy to be together and to contemplate God's tremendous faithfulness this last year. Saludos!
It seems like just yesterday we sent our two oldest off to Ecuador and Chicago followed shortly by the rest of us moving to Spain. Now we are pulling everyone back together again to enjoy a few weeks as family in Barcelona. We will probably see snow when we travel over the Pyrenees to visit France but most likely will see more sun and fresh produce at the Boqueria Market downtown. The colors of these peppers began to get me in the mood for Christmas while the rest of the signals have not. Where is the frenzy that most pastors experience right about now? Hmmm, we are not as frantic as we usually are at this point in the year. That is nice on the one hand. However, it shows we are less a part of a community, so far, on the other hand.
God has been very faithful in our transitions and new ministry opportunities are beginning to emerge. I was with a group of pastors and missionaries yesterday on a tour of a local historic town with marks of the Roman Empire. Very interesting to have that influence here in Spain but not necessarily strange. The Romans got around in their day! There were also stories of St. Paul’s missionary journey at some of the Catholic sites we visited. If you remember from your Bible reading, Paul was always eager to get to Spain. That prompted him to write the book of Romans by the way (see Romans 15:24-28). Anyway, it was a valuable time of networking. Around the dinner table I had two couples from Ecuador, another two from the Philippians, a single guy from Mexico and another group of folks from Spain and Argentina. This international flavor seems to be a theme of our lives here in Spain (see story below about the cell group last week). I got them talking about their favorite traditional foods from home. Wow, was that fun. We brainstormed about each other hosting a meal with our new friends. They all said I could prepare hamburgers for them. We all got a good laugh out of that. I seem to be the unique person from the U.S. in the groups I connect with. Carol´s experience is similar, even at the American school where Erick attends. I find that both curious and enjoyable. Not sure why. That is just our situation currently.
Well, as you approach Christmas, remember to….(here I’m supposed to kick into some gooey Christmas sentimentality but I will resist!)… well, remember to have a good time. Don’t get stressed out and try to connect to the simplicity of Christ’s coming and the implications for your life and our world!
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