3W Staff Meeting III is in the Books.

This week most of our Three Worlds team was in Cairo, Egypt for our annual Staff Meeting.  Not with us were Daniel, Christy and Sofie Kihm who are still in the USA and raising funds to join us next year in the Netherlands (Holland).  We were also missing Zach and Audrey Langford who are also in the USA raising funds for their new assignment in the U.K.  The next time we have our Staff Meeting, we hope to have them with us.

The Staff Meeting is a very intensive time together that focuses on the overall goals and strategy of Three Worlds.  It is very much a time of business.  There's not much sharing, or dealing with personal issues.  That is for a different kind of meeting---a retreat.  These meetings are very intensive.  We begin at 9Am and go to 5PM and then return for more meetings from 7pm to 9pm.  Last night's meeting didn't end until 10:30 PM.

We cover a massive amount of issues during this time:  Recruitment, budget issues, tax laws, property issues, media presence, relationships to churches in the USA,  an in-depth review of what is happening in all of our mission-fields, report from each 3W team member about what they are doing with an opportunity for others to speak into it, and we look very closely at our 3 main goals and review everything we've done throughout the year:

We look at the 3W prism which focuses our regional goals into a top 3:

1) Engaging young people in cross-cultural ministry

2) Supporting empowered and ACCOUNTABLE leaders under 45 years of age

3) Creating inner-connectivity in the CHOG throughout the region and beyond.

We look at all the work that we've done in detail and see if we really are accomplishing 1, 2, and 3 in the work that we are doing.  This is my favorite part, because each year, we see that, yes, indeed, we really are finding concrete ways to engage the young generation, support leaders at critical times, and the region is experiencing ever-higher levels of connectivity.

Under our system, all of the missionaries work regionally and have the opportunity to speak into each other's mission-fields as well as speak into the work we are doing as Regional Coordinators.  I love this because the whole team--every member and every mission-field, gets more refined as we process together.  New ideas are generated, new connections are made, and we add to each others' work exponentially.  And all of our 3W missionaries are all so full of ideas and bring a lot of varieties of expertise to the table, so I find myself learning a lot and getting a lot of great ideas that we latch onto.

So many great connections have been generated: Between Hungary and Bulgaria, between Bulgaria and Germany, between Germany and Italy, between France and Holland, and on and on and on.  Three Worlds serves as a mechanism to create that inner-connectivity and strategically empower great work being done throughout the region.

Despite the long meetings which went all day long, there was a lot of laughter and great sharing.  The team chemistry is wonderful and that too takes intentionality and a common ethos.

It's also been nice to see our MK's (missionary kids/Third Culture Kids) have such a good time being together and relating to each other.  We're proud of all of them.

And it was great getting to spend the Sunday service with the Cairo Christian Fellowship where the Oldhams are the pastors.  Our team is very much interested in being an encouraging presence in our churches from Rome, to London, to Egypt.

One of the most surprising things that came out through the meetings is how many of us have great stories from the past year that we simply cannot share on the internet or even in newsletters.  There's various reasons for this: security concerns, sensitive issues pending as we solve problems, prejudice against Christians in some regions of Europe, and being sensitive to the privacy of those we deal with in Europe--especially when there is so much skepticism about people in our line of work.  There are so many great things we CAN'T Report on, or that we have to wait months and even years to unveil.  But we really proceed with  maximum caution in this region.  We have, for instance, a number of new initiatives that we have been working on for over a year that we hope to unveil in the coming 6 months.  There's a lot of stuff like that too.

But all in all, we focus a lot on the long-game, collecting up micro-wins as we go that we believe will have huge pay-offs in the future.  In many cases, we are already seeing the fruits of our labor pay off after 2 years of working with this 3W approach.

A Special Thanks to the 3W Teammates here in Cairo: the kids who were patient with the long meetings, the team mates who stayed engaged despite the long sessions, and who made a big effort to be here.  And the most thanks goes to the Oldhams for hosting this event in their new home only 10 months after arriving here.  They are fabulous hosts.  I look forward to being back here in 3 weeks for the 3W Roundtable with our donors.

And to the Langfords and the Kihms, we missed you guys and are anxious for you to add your input and experience to all of the work we are doing in this region.  And to the Varners, thanks for all that you did during the start-up phase and we wish you and your growing family the best.  We all missed you.

 

 

 

Time to Laugh: 3W Staff Meeting III: Cairo

This week's "Time to Laugh" is one I post before each one of our 3W Staff Meetings.  It's a great example of how NOT to do cross-cultural work.  It's one of my favorites.  Catherine Tate shows off her less-than-competent interpreter skills. The three of us (along with Dave and Kathy Simpson: 3W Bulgaria) are all on our way to Cairo, Egypt where we will meet up with the Oldhams (3W Egypt) and the Philips (3W Berlin).  Unfortunately, our newest team members the Kihms (3W Netherlands) and the Langfords (3W United Kingdom) are still raising funds and can't join us for this staff meeting.  We will miss them.  I'll write an update from Egypt soon.

 

25th CHOG European Theological Conference

This week we had the 25th European Theological Conference of the Church of God in Fritzlar, Germany.  It was a wonderful event with representatives from Germany, the Netherlands, France, England, Ukraine, Hungary, Lebanon, and other places.  The event revolves around a particular theological topic or issue (this year it was holiness), but it is also a time of fellowship and of receiving updates from the various regions.  The Church of God Bible School in Fritzlar is our host every 2 years for this event.  Aside from being a lovely town, I also really enjoy the fact that it means we get to see many of the young German youth.

Great things are going on throughout the region.  I continue to be so happy with the genuine unity and spirit of cooperation that I see amongst the European churches.  Our region may be the smallest in the CHOG world, but what we lack in size, we make up for in unity.  And that unity is leading to more and more cooperation across borders.  We are seeing the level of inner-connectivity grow dramatically and this has been very encouraging.

It was wonderful to have Pastor Jacques Zola of the French-speaking Congolese church in Holland attend his first meeting as a Church of God pastor.  And it was great to see Pastor Fegali of the Paris Church of God attend and give a great report on the innovative work amongst Arab-speaking churches in Paris.  From the U.K., we heard that the church in Birkenhead (Liverpool) where we are sending 3W missionaries Zach and Audrey Langford had 45 youth attend the Wednesday night service.  This was unbelievably great news!  And it's yet another reason why we need to mobilize behind the Langfords to get full support.  In the Netherlands, traditional, post-modern, and non-Western churches are coming together and cooperating (Three Worlds indeed!).  And the Ukraine had young leaders share with us about their plans to expand their work.  And in Hungary, 2 healthy churches with young leadership are on the brink of starting a new church plant in downtown Budapest.

Overall, what we continue to see in Europe is that churches are willing to re-calibrate, take risks, and do new things in their effort to reach out to their neighborhoods and countries.  I'm immensely proud of everyone and am so happy to be serving amongst the people of this region.

I believe this region is going to set a new standard for cooperation and unity in the Church of God.  Unity, as is well-known, is one of our greatest points of weakness in the Church of God. It requires intentionality and humility amongst the parts of leaders to truly create a regional unity that fosters cooperation and mutual support.  We are seeing this happen here.  Three Worlds is thrilled to be a part of all of this and we are committed to serving the region and helping to bring health and vibrancy to the great work being done throughout the region by CHOG churches.

Above is a video I took of the downtown square of Fritzlar, Germany.  It's always a joy to spend time in Fritzlar and we are grateful to the staff and students at the Bible School who made us all feel so welcome.

 

 

Time to Laugh

Dave and Kathy Simpson have arrived in Berlin and we're getting ready to go to the European Theological Conference which is held every 2 years in Fritzlar, Germany.  We'll be seeing most of the National leaders and great friends from the Europe/Middle East region.

This week's "time to laugh" is an old song that I first heard listening to Armed Forces Radio when I lived in South Korea 17 years ago.  It's ridiculous, but what a great guitar part and beat.  This should really be the ring tone on all of the Oldham's phones.  Let this song get stuck in your head and it will never leave for 17 years.  I promise.  And who can beat the Shakespearean lyrics below?

 

Baby, Would you eat that there snack cracker In your special outfit for me, please?

Yo ye pharoahs, let us walk Through this barren desert, in search of truth And some pointy boots, and maybe a few snack crackers.

baby, you make me wanna walk like a camel. walk!

Who's in charge here? where's my Captain's wafers? Don't go around hungry now, the way you eat that oatmeal pie, Makes me just wanna die, baby!

You make me wanna walk like a camel. walk!

Say, you don't think there's any way I can get that quarter From underneath your pointy boot, do ya? All I want is just one more oatmeal pie. Little Debbie, Little Debbie! I'm a'comin on home, baby, 'cause you make me wanna walk Like a camel

Did Jesus Have a Wife?

On September 18th, Harvard Divinity School professor Karen King presented a paper in Rome in which she discusses a papyrus framgent in her possession that seems to suggest that Jesus had a wife.  Since then, there have been a number of news stories making claims like: "Proof Jesus was Married," or asking the question "Did Jesus Have a Wife?" From time to time, there will be articles like this that surface which seem to suggest something shocking that would shake the very foundations of Christianity.  In the 1990's, the Jesus Seminar (which Harvard Divinity School fueled) suggested that many statements attributed in the New Testament are not authentically those of Jesus.  This got otherwise obscure Bible scholars lots of TV time and even cover issues on Time and Newsweek at pretty regular intervals through the 90's.  It seemed like every year or other year, Jesus would make the cover of Time with some provocative kind of question:  "Who was Jesus Really?"

At the time, Oxford University New Testament Scholar N.T. Wright predicted that the Jesus Seminar would be a footnote in history.  And indeed, that has been the case for some time now.  In the 2000's, Dan Brown's "Da Vinci Code" (poor writing, but great story--Jamie and I loved it) claimed to a be a realistic novel about the secrets about Christianity and Jesus that the Christian church has been hiding for centuries.  The Christian history, the Biblical knowledge, and the art history was riddled with errors and made-up materials but Brown (as a literary device) framed it as real and then declined all interviews.

Now we have Karen King raising the possibility that this is a lost Gospel that claims Jesus was married.  To be fair to Mrs. King, she is NOT claiming Jesus was married even if the press is reporting it like that.  She knows that she is far away from proving that so she has framed this find in a way that garners the most attention, but which doesn't commit her to declaring it authentic proof of a historical fact: Jesus was married.

A few things believers and non-Believers should know about this:

*This is a very, very small piece of papyrus that we are talking about that has been cut into a perfect square (not a good sign in that it's missing the text around it that would put it into context--and usually pieces like this are not cut into a perfect square).

*The most intriguing part of the papyrus is a comment that reads "Jesus said to them, "My wife."  Other phrases are, for instance "deny.  Mary is worthy of it...."  "The Disciples said to Jesus..." "She will be able to be my disciple."  Other sections are even more broken up:  "three", "forth which", "my mother."

*The person who owns the fragment and who gave it to Professor King wants to remain nameless.  That's not necessarily a deal-breaker but it's not a great sign either.  the unidentified owner seems to have purchased it from a collector in Berlin many years ago.

*Professor King's paper got a cool reception from the International Association of Coptic Studies in Rome with the vast majority of scholars doubting its authenticity.  There were questions about the handwriting and the grammar by scholars there and beyond the meeting.

*Those who have dated the papyrus suggest it is from a fourth or fifth century text--perhaps a 4th century copy of a 2nd century text.  That is quite removed from the time when the Gospels in the New Testament and Paul's letters were written between AD 64 to AD 95 a continuation of the oral stories passed on by witnesses. Those early manuscripts were then defended from new heretical gospels by early Church Fathers such a Irenaeus of Lyon who lived in the early 2nd century---a safeguard against heresy as the original disciples and oral stories and written texts were passed on through time.

*The papyrus has been deemed authentic by a few tests, but it has not been subjected to the latest/best technology for dating.

*There is not enough information in this papyrus to tell us whether this is from a Gnostic text, from a more orthodox group, or from some other non-traditional group.

*Regardless, the papyrus seems to have come from a Century in which many heretical or non-orthodox texts were created.

*Professor King already has pointed out that this papyrus will not tell us information about the historical Jesus rather it is more about bringing to light issues of sexuality and gender in the 2nd Century (This is key!).

*It is most likely excerpts from a gnostic gospel like "the Gospel of Thomas" that we have long known about.

Giving Professor King the benefit of the doubt, it's possible that she was given an ancient papyrus that does contain a section of an alternate Gospel not linked to the historic Christian church.  And she did the right thing by letting us examine more in-depth the variety of gnostic expressions that existed in the 2-4th century.  By giving her paper the admittedly wrong title of "The Gospel of Jesus's Wife" (there is no Gospel of Jesus's Wife and this is certainly not proof that it's even part of a well-known gnostic Gospel yet), it garnered her (and the papyrus) a lot of attention and raises the profile of Biblical Studies looking into Early Christianity.

Another possibility however, is that Professor King, like the Jesus Seminar, and Dan Brown, has a more political agenda which is to use "scholarship" to raise questions about the institutional church's teachings on orthodox Christian theology and gender and sexuality issues.  In other words, "let's not worry too much about authenticity if it can be used to question traditional Christianity's beliefs about itself."

Christians shouldn't fear moments like the Jesus Seminar, the Da Vinci Code, or "the Gospel of Jesus' Wife." At the same time, we need to be aware that our faith is a very well-examined faith and that the burden of proof (in disproving historic Christian teachings about Jesus) is long and steep.  At least considerably more difficult than the general media may think.

 

 

 

Celebrating 20 Years Together!

 

Jamie and I are celebrating 20 years together this week.  It's not our anniversary, but rather when we first started dating.  We were both in college: she was a freshman and I was a junior after having taken 2 years off.  We hit it off immediately and found we had a lot in common as missionary  kids.  Most bonding of all, however, was that I had just recently lost my mother to cancer and Jamie's father was entering the last stages of cancer.  So our relationship was very serious from the beginning.  Discussions about death and what losing a parent means were heavy but brought us closer together.

We survived long-distance when I moved to South Korea, we survived even longer-distance when we moved 3,000 miles to the East Coast, and then we moved 8,000 miles to Hong Kong.  And now another few thousand to Europe.  Through it all, we've always had so much fun together.  She's my best friend, the person I trust the most in the world, and I always love being with her.  Each date feels like the first, and that's the absolute truth.

We've gotten to travel all over the world together and we've survived some very stressful times.  And we've learned so much together about ourselves, the world, and life in general.  I always say, "it was the smartest decision I ever made," and that's the truth.  From the very beginning, because of how we started, we were always conscious of the fact that you don't know how much time you have together in this life, so we've always appreciated every minute we've had together.

Here's to at least 40 more years together.  We're so grateful to all of our friends and family that have supported us over the years.

There's a line from a song by one of my favorite artists, Terence Trent D'arby that always makes me think of Jamie because it's so true:

"If it were not for your sweetness, I would not know who I am."

 

Time to Laugh

As I learn to shift my schedule and unwind a bit, I've decided to add a new bit to the diary.  This is a serious job...and sometimes a bit too serious.  So from time to time, I'm going to put up a video ("Time to Laugh") that is humorous and hopefully makes us laugh.  Laughing is good for you.  It releases endorphins, or dolphins, or stress chemicals or something like that.  So I need more of it in my life. Up first is a scene from "Life's Too Short" about a mostly-failed midget actor who is friends with British comedian Ricky Gervais.  In this scene, they are visited by another famous actor---Liam Neeson.  Liam, known for his serious roles like Oscar Schindler in my favorite movie "Schindler's List," shows up to announce he wants to start doing comedy.

 

Abuse of Power in the Church

This past week, I traveled down to a place called Giessen just north of Frankfurt.  I was there to meet with the NorthWest German Pastors at their annual retreat and to speak on the subject of "Abuse of Power in the Church." I spoke about how abuse of power in churches and Christian organizations is rampant.  If anything, I said, abuse of power occurs MORE in the church and in Christian organizations than in the secular world.  This is because religious organizations are high-trust societies where people are pretty much unguarded--expecting the best.  Consequently, there are few safeguards to prevent abuse.

Furthermore, religious organizations often deal with the subjective.  "I feel called to do this...", "God is leading me to do that...".  There are not always good ways to gauge decision-making or outcomes.  They are very feeling-based organisms.

Two things I talked about were subtle abuses of power:  The problem of leaders in positions for which they are not gifted and the failure to empower the next generation of leaders.

The problem of leaders being in positions that they are not good at has to do with people holding power who are not qualified to hold power.  By holding that position, they end up hurting the entire church or organization or system.  Those of us in leadership must know our strengths and weaknesses and not put ourselves into positions that empower us when we don't have the skills to wield that power.  The damage is severe.  If it means stepping aside, then we must.

The failure to empower the next generation of leaders is rampant in the church and in Christian organizations.  I thinks it's an abuse of power when those in power are not seeking ways to empower the next generation and to make sure the church or organization survives beyond their particular tenure.  A good use of power empowers others.

I also mentioned was the importance of accountability.  Not simply accountability-in-name which most organizations and churches have, but genuine accountability where your errors will be caught and power can't really be wielded in a careless or hurtful fashion.  I've seen a lot of abuse of pastoral/leader power in the last 20 years and it always leaves deep wounds and weakens churches and organizations significantly.

Finally, I talked about how the Church of God because of it's history and theology actually lends itself to these kinds of abuses of power.  I discussed this at length in my third book "Mosaic" so I won't go there, suffice to say, understanding the human side of organizations and power is important in the church.

It was great meeting with the pastors and I enjoyed this little trip to central Germany.

This was my first trip in over a month.  As you two diary readers know, I've been trying to slow down my schedule and it has been a very refreshing time.  This little journey was only by train and was within country and was also very short, so that was nice.  My next major trip won't be until next month--I think.....Yay!   It's been great to catch my breath and have focused time with the family without interruptions.