Home from our travels...

We had a wonderful trip to Northfield, Minnesota to spend time with friends Heidi and Alan and their new baby, Addie, and to Fargo, North Dakota, where we had a great time with Sara's sister and brother-in-law, Elizabeth and Greg. If you're interested, there are lots more photos...

On the plane I read The Irresistible Revolution by Shane Claiborne - a book I've been meaning to read, and which I've skimmed around, for quite some time. (Yes, I know, the rest of you read this book eons ago.) Wow. Powerful stuff. I have a lot to process, and a lot to examine about my life. If you haven't read it yet and you want to be serious about living a Gospel-centered life, it is an absolute must-read.

After 13 hours of traveling - rental car from Northfield to Minneapolis, plane to Milwaukee, plane to Boston, bus to Portland, and cab to our house - Rachel was very tired, and so were her parents. It was a great trip, but we're glad to be home!!

Overheard on the plane

Just a couple of rows ahead of us on the plane, there was a young mother with two sons, maybe 3 and 4 years old. She spent a considerable amount of time getting the two boys situated in their seats on one side of the aisle - seatbelts on, snacks out, toys to keep them occupied available - and her seat was to be on the other side of the aisle, next to a woman with white hair.

Son #1: Mommy, where are you sitting?

Mother, pointing to her seat on the other side of the aisle: I'm sitting over here.

Son #1: Over there with that old lady?

Everyone nearby: embarrassed laughter.

The Best Care in the Air

We're in Northfield, Minnesota tonight, where we're staying with friends Heidi and Alan and their new baby, Adelaide. Tomorrow we'll head to Fargo, North Dakota for several days with Sara's sister Elizabeth and her husband Greg. We are really looking forward to the time with them.

For tonight I just have to say Midwest Airlines is the best! They call their signature service "the best care in the air." Three things did it for me:

• extra wide leather seats, making for plenty of room
• Dr. Pepper on the menu
• complimentary ooey, gooey, warm chocolate chip cookies, baked on the plane! Does it get any better than that?

More inspiration from England

Besides time at the Urban Theology Unit, we’ve also spent part of a day in Bradford, a once affluent but now struggling industrial city with lots of poverty and issues of race relations, also home to the University of Bradford and Bradford College. We visited the Desmond Tutu House on the edge of the campus, led by Rev. Chris Howson, the Anglican Diocese of Bradford’s City Centre Mission Priest, who is doing some amazing things to help students and other young people explore issues of spirituality and become active in the struggle for peace and justice. Chris is well known in the UK for his involvement with Fresh Expressions, which has parallels with our emerging church movement. We’re incredibly thankful for his generosity in sharing his time, even taking us on a (very cold and soggy) walking tour of Bradford, with a stop at the German Church in Bradford (once a Methodist Chapel) for midday worship.

The center itself and its ministry are impressive. They have a gathering room, called Peace Chapel, used for worship, but also for meetings of groups promoting peace, justice, environmental awareness, and other causes compatible with their mission. Worship gatherings at the house include SoulSpace (a relaxed, participatory, inclusive gathering) on Sundays at noon and JustChurch (focusing on issues of peace, justice, and human rights) on Tuesday evenings. We ended our visit with a great lunch at Treehouse Café, housed in the Desmond Tutu House but run by the Bradford Centre for Nonviolence – a smorgasbord of local, fair trade, organic food, coffee, and desserts. We learned a lot and left with plenty of ideas. It was a very inspiring visit. (See further notes about this visit on my New Light blog.)

We took advantage of a free day on Thursday and drove about 90 minutes to Epworth, childhood home of John & Charles Wesley (and their 12 or 13 siblings). We saw the Anglican Church where their father, Samuel Wesley, was the rector for 39 years. As a priest and leader of the early Methodist movement, John Wesley was banned from entering this church because his ideas were so controversial and radical… a good reminder that God sometimes moves us to witness and work for change, and sometimes that means doing and saying things that are against the mainstream of society and even against the authorities of the church! Not to be defeated, John Wesley preached from other places in the town, including his father’s grave outside the church. The rectory where the Wesleys lived for almost 40 years was closed for the season, but we got to walk around it (and peek in the windows), and around the village, which was quite a thrill. We also saw the Wesley Memorial Methodist Church and several other historic sites in Epworth.

Rachel is taking everything in stride! She is sleeping well and entertaining everyone, and when it really counts, she’s even settling down and looking at her books contentedly so we can listen to speakers and participate in sessions. We are thankful.

Reporting from England

We are several days into our England trip, and I haven’t been able to post as I had hoped because our access to the Internet is much less consistent than we had anticipated. I’ll try to encapsulate some of our experiences briefly.

Sheffield is an interesting city. Though diverse in other areas, the sections we have been exploring are largely Muslim, evidenced by Muslim businesses, mosques, and people in Muslim dress everywhere on the streets. Long-time Sheffield residents have no doubt seen many changes over the years!

And here, in the Sheffield neighborhood of Pitsmoor, in the center of Muslim life, is the Urban Theology Unit, where we’ve spent much of our time since arriving on Monday. We have found our work with Rev. Dr. John Vincent to be quite helpful as we continue to sharpen a vision for ministry in Portland. The vision is emerging – quite possibly to include a coffee shop/ laundromat in the Portland neighborhood where we’ve begun to focus our sights – not for the sake of providing coffee or laundry facilities per se, and certainly not because we’re looking at profit potentials, but specifically as a means of developing community in a neighborhood that lacks such amenities and thus lacks stability. Most important, we’re realizing, is to ensure a low threshold, so people in the neighborhood will enter our doors. Then once they’re there, we can practice Christian hospitality, begin to develop relationships, and form community. Our facility might include meetings spaces, a chapel (of sorts), space for children, eating space (of course!), art on the walls, community bulletin boards, and possibly performance space for concerts and the like. We can imagine all sorts of groups – reading groups, discussion groups, worship gatherings, and interest groups focusing on peace and justice issues, for example – that we might form to gather people together. This kind of space would also provide opportunity for a variety of worship gatherings – mid-week Taize worship, traditional worship, more quiet & reflective worship, and possibly worship with musical styles appealing to younger adults as well. Our goal in this proposed center is not to provide social services, and not necessarily to “do good things” for people in need, but rather to form authentic community, striving always for mutuality in relationships.

But these our just our ideas, which sound great in the abstract. First, though, we’ll need to begin by listening… listening… listening to the people who are already on the ground, who call this neighborhood their home, who know their own needs much better than we know them as outsiders looking in.

Yes, I'm still alive!

Here it is February 23, and I realize I've been silent on this blog for more than three weeks. I guess it's been something of a blur since our plane landed back in Portland following our week in Kansas City, and now here we are preparing for another take-off -- this one for two weeks in England.

We are excited! We're going with two laypersons from the established church we serve -- two delightful seniors (is that an acceptable descriptor?), both of them women, from the congregation. Yes, we are excited, but they are even more excited. At least if the date of packing is any indicator. Both of them have been packed a full two weeks. I still have not begun to pack... but no worries: our plane doesn't leave for 11 hours. From Boston. After I finish my sermon, get some sleep, then lead worship, and get ready to take a bus to Logan. Maybe I should think about locating my luggage and doing some last-minute laundry. That would be a good place to start...

We will spend 10 days at the Urban Theology Unit in Sheffield, where our work with John Vincent will help us to sharpen a vision for a new kind of ministry here in Portland. Our itinerary is still a bit fuzzy in my mind, but as I understand it, we'll participate in some learning sessions on Bible & the City and Living the Gospel in the Urban Setting, visit some churches doing innovative things, meet with church leaders, and participate in worship and fellowship gatherings connected with a faith community of which John Vincent is a part. Assuming we have access to the Internet, we hope to post now and then with updates.

And then, since we're already in England, we'll conclude our trip with four days in London once we've delivered our two parishioners to Heathrow for their return trip. Sara has been to London, when she was in 8th grade and her grandparents took her; I have not. The specifics of our adventures in London will depend on how Rachel is doing at that point. We're learning every day, in new and more profound ways, how unpredictable 19-month-olds can be!

My hope is not to anticipate too much, but just to take in all that this trip will afford us... to learn as much as we can, to enjoy our time away, and hopefully to find the experience renewing on many different levels. We are incredibly thankful for the diverse opportunities we've had over these past nine months or so, to travel, to meet some gifted and generous people, and to learn so much from others. I know God is going to use all of these experiences as we continue our ministry, both helping the established congregation imagine a new future, with new purpose and new vitality, and also in our very exciting efforts to plant a brand new congregation.

So... back to sermonating. And then there's that whole packing thing... But then, sleep is overrated.

Day Four in Kansas City

Here it is almost midnight on Tuesday, and I can't believe how quickly our days in Kansas City have been flying by!

Over the weekend we celebrated worship with The United Methodist Church of the Resurrection, First Light, Revolution, and Jacob's Well -- four very different worship gatherings, but each inspiring in its own way. I hope to have time to share reflections and observations more fully in the days ahead.

We also got to meet with Steven Blair, lead pastor at First Light, who was incredibly helpful in sharing his own experiences and insights as a church planter; and with five different staff persons from Church of the Resurrection, who shared their expertise around discipleship formation, leadership development, incorporation of newcomers, and community missions, among other topics.

The icing on the cake was going to be the opportunity to attend a dinner gathering of the "Leadership Community" (I just have to say, that is much cooler than a Church Council or an Administrative Board or even a Leadership Team!) at Jacob's Well, but we got there to find out that the meeting had been canceled. Major bummer. But no complaints -- we have found everyone to be so helpful and generous in sharing what they've learned, and for that we're grateful!

In between all these incredible experiences, we've been having a great time with our new friends Andrew & Nicole. Thanks, you two, for making this such an awesome trip for us!

Rachel hasn't completely adjusted to the time zone change, so she's been waking up at 4:30 most mornings. Anticipating that, I think I better head to bed!

HaPpY nEw YeAr!

Oh man! How blessed I am! We have just returned from our post-Christmas travels. We got to spend some quality time with both sides of the family - first with my extended family in Searsport, Maine, and then with Sara's, both the Ewing and the Turkington sides, in Lake Junaluska, NC. Rachel got to celebrate Christmas with all four grandparents, and with all five of her living great-grandparents, and with a whole assortment of aunts, uncles, and cousins. If I counted it right, we got to see 37 different family members over this past week! We are feeling so grateful for the gift of extended family - for these relationships which keep us grounded and which nurture us so deeply.

I have lots to reflect upon here at the beginning of a brand new year, but first I'm anxious to get some good sleep in my own bed, so I'll begin with just these few things for which I'm thankful:

• that the trip home went smoothly, and especially that our plane landed safely even in the middle of a snowstorm
• that Rachel slept the entire way home, through two flights and all the transitions in and out of her stroller, on and off planes, and even into a car once we'd landed the final time
• that our friend Oliver came in his four-wheel drive to pick us up at the airport and delivered us to our door
• that even though we've apparently had several significant snow "events" while we've been away, some kind and generous neighbor has kept our driveway and walks shoveled, saving me lots of time and frustration tomorrow

How much better does it get?

Happy New Year! I'll get back in blogging mode soon!