Get To Know Our New Three Worlds Home

Hello everybody!  Here we are in our new web-home www.threeworlds.com  We hope that you are a frequent visitor to our website and especially this diary.  You are currently in the diary section.  The home page is: www.three-worlds.com.  Check out our lovely front page.  This diary is a bit different than the other one so here's a helpful links page that fills you in on our content at this new website:

1) Learn about what the Three Worlds are here.

2) Get to know our 3W team here.

3) Learn about the "Gateway Berlin Radio" podcast which is coming soon here.

4) Order my new book "Mosaic" here (or die).

5) Learn about our Three World logo and about our ministry types (Red, Green, and Blue) here.

6) Ministry opportunities and internships will be posted here in the future.

7) And check out "Patrick's Photos from Around the World" here.

Aaron and Nicole Varner

Aaron and Nicole Varner are current team members of the new XZBerlin (www.xzberlin.com) community and  regional Three Worlds (www.three-worlds.com) team. XZ means "Christ-Centered" and comes from Χριστός (Greek for "Christ") and Zentrisch (German for "Centric" or "centered"). Aaron was born into a family who has deep roots in the Church of God. Both of his parents (Collet and Nancy Varner) are ordained ministers and still worship in a Church of God congregation.  After the Varner family moved from his birth-state, Indiana, in 1994, Aaron attended high school and then completed his undergraduate work in Business Administration (Warner University) in Central Florida.  Nicole (Beckler)  grew up in Wichita, KS and, after graduating high school, majored in Family Studies at Kansas State University.  After Nicole left home, her parents (Pastor Bob and Lori Beckler) moved from Kansas to Lake Wales, FL to become the Senior Pastors of Aaron's home church (South Lake Wales Church of God)...and that's how the Varners officially met in 2006.

Although the Varners are still relatively young at 28, they feel that their life experiences give them an unbelievable opportunity to relate to people from all age groups and walks of life. They have already had previous experiences serving as elementary school teachers, youth leaders, mentors to college students, developers and leaders of young adult small groups, and facilitators of senior adult Bible studies.  Not to mention that between the two of them, they have visited over 30 countries enabling them to connect and relate to the global-minded individuals that make up Berlin, and on a greater scale, Europe as a whole.

Both Aaron and Nicole have been commissioned through the Church of God and began serving with the XZBerlin team in Berlin, Germany on September 1, 2010. Although focusing primarily on the innovative XZCommunity in the heart of the German capital city, the Varners also serve as an important part of the Three Worlds team raising up a new generation of globally engaged Christian youth and emerging leaders and helping to promote connectivity within the Church of God.

We're No Longer at Chinatimesonline.com

Welcome to three-worlds.com, it's great to see you!  You are now in the Three Worlds Diary where we will continue to write about our life, our ministry, our travels, as well as discussing geo-political issues and covering the international scene.  Thank you to all of you who have followed us on chinatimesonline.com for the last 8 years.  We are now moving to our new home at three-worlds.com.  Please reset your browsers bookmarks and get ready for a global view coming out of Europe and the Middle East.

We are now the Regional Coordinators for Europe and the Middle East for Global Missions and will be based in Berlin, Germany as of July 9th, 2010.  We are working with a team of missionaries that we call the Three Worlds Team (or 3w Team).  You will be hearing not just about us, but about our individual team members as well.  They are based in Germany, Bulgaria, the Middle East, and other parts of the region.  Mostly, you will be reading my voice, but you will also hear from the rest of the team members in writing, in audio, and eventually through video.  Three-Worlds.com will be our primary mode of communication about our work--although most everyone on the team has their own web pages, facebook pages, and other ways of communicating.

For those of you that have been following the Chinatimesonline for years (and there actually are many of you), this diary will be similar to the last one.  There will be considerably less China analysis (although that still remains my area of academic expertise), and more about Europe, the Middle East, and Africa.  At the heart of this website, however, will be our attempts to process the global shifts that are occurring in Christianity.  Three Worlds as a team and a website will be a place where we try and stay ahead of the curve of all that is happening globally in the world of religion.  Hopefully you will learn a lot, be inspired, get involved, and laugh a lot too!  Laughter is a big part of our Three-Worlds Team.  You gotta have fun too.

So welcome to Three-Worlds.com.  We are still building the website.  It will be months before things are fully looking how we want, but we start here.  Check out the photos, check out the news, and in time--you will definitely want to check out our podcast:  Gateway Berlin Radio.  So let's get this party started.