THREE WORLDS DIARY
3W Seminar III: London
I just returned from spending a week in London where Gary and Belinda Kendall joined me for our 3W Seminar at the Church of God in Tottenham. The subject for this 3W Seminar was: "The Vision Ladder: Making Your Church's Vision Become a Reality." Gary and Belinda brought their years of experience and success in Pastoring, church management, and church planting to the material and it was an eye-opening, fascinating presentation. Three joined us from the Birkenhead (Liverpool) Church and attendance was very good.
All of us were riveted throughout this presentation. Every comment was deeply pertinent to our church situations and Gary's presentation was so easy to follow. After the first 45 minute section, I was already hearing rave reviews from the Seminar attendees. By Sunday afternoon when it all concluded, everyone unanimously agreed that this was an outstanding presentation that brought tons of clarity to our UK churches and to me personally. Everyone seemed to be taking notes furiously.
One of the things that I think Gary and Belinda embody (like Kelley Philips, Rod Stafford, and others I've admired) is their very clear investment in the next generation of leaders. When they could be hoarding power or creating inward ministries that keep them on top, they do the opposite and find young people to invest in. This is the 2nd seminar that I've done with the Kendalls (Rome in February 2012) and I always feel overwhelmed by the encouragement that they give me personally and the support that they give to Three Worlds by allowing themselves to be resourced. So thank you Gary and Belinda for being who you are.
And Sister Sadie and Pastor Mascall did a wonderful job of preparing things on the ground for this seminar. I greatly enjoy working with the U.K. churches who have been so supportive of Three Worlds from the beginning. We've had 5 seminars there and are in the process of putting Zach and Audrey Langford as Career Missionaries to the UK for 3W. I'm very grateful to both the Birkenhead Church and Tottenham for their support and cooperation.
Lastly, we did have some free time for the Kendalls to explore my favorite place in the whole world: London. While we saw some sights and I got to do some of my favorite things (visit Covent Garden, go to the travel bookstore, do some Christmas shopping for Marco and Jamie), a lot of that extra time allowed me to pick Gary and Belinda's brains about the work that they have done and what we at 3W can learn from it. There's a lot. So that time together is always extremely valuable and, as with the 3W Roundtable, gives us ideas on how to make Three Worlds even better.
I'll be back in London in March when we do a 3W Seminar on "How to Successfully Plant a Church." I'm very much looking forward to that one as well.
Thanks to all involved in the 3W Seminar London and thanks to all of you who support Three Worlds.
Prayers for Egypt
We continue to follow the events in Egypt and ask for your prayers that the situation will not get worse. Ken and Keli Oldham's blog is a great source of information to all that is happening in this fast-moving situation. Check it out here.
Also Michael Koplow discusses the danger of Egypt's re-engagement amidst this turmoil here.
Isobel Kolman discusses the problems with the new constitution here.
The Guardian looks at Egypt's problem with authoritarianism and highlights the loss of credibility as Morsi sees advisors and ambassadors resign or distance themselves here.
Washington Post gives us 5 Take Aways from Morsi's speech last night here.
Video: Arco Church of God
As Three Worlds continues to develop, we're going to utilize video more and post our videos on our own YouTube Channel "ThreeWorldsTV." Some of these videos will be interviews, some will be about events (like our 3W Seminars), some will be videos of the beautiful places and scenery in our region.
Here's our first video showing the beautiful location of the Arco Church of God on the Lago di Garda in Northern Italy.
Building Relationships in Athens
November 14th through 19th, 3W Teammates Dave and Kathy Simpson and me, were joined by Nathan and Stacy Tatman from County Line Church of God as we visited with the Athens Church of God. The Tsimparas family were our hosts and we had a very nice time connecting with this congregation which is located in a very important city at a time of great crisis for the country of Greece. The ministry opportunities are significant, but we have focused on getting to know the congregation over the past year.
The church has experienced difficult times in recent years but their is renewed optimism about it's future--which we spent a lot of time discussing over the course of our visit. This winter they will be getting a visit from Anderson University students. This is the first group to visit in many, many years. They still remember when future 3W teammate Daniel Kihm visited many years ago! We'll speak more of Athens in the future as we continue in this encouragement, reconnection, planning phase.
As a country, Greece is under great strain. People don't have their medications, malaria is making a comeback, and basic services are under threat. A Reuters article highlights that religious groups are making an appeal:
GENEVA (Reuters) - Greece is facing a humanitarian crisis and growing racism, two international church groups said on Thursday, and appealed to the European Union to help the struggling nation.
In an open letter from Greece, the secretaries-general of the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Conference of European Churches (CEC) said the country faced youth unemployment of over 50 percent and basic services were at risk.
Noting the EU had been awarded this year's Nobel Peace Prize, they said: "The economic and humanitarian tragedy today in Greece challenges the EU as a peace builder for the next generation."
Olav Fyske Tveit of the WCC and Guy Liagre of the CEC urged EU leaders to give "urgent and proper attention to the emerging humanitarian crisis in Greece."
The Geneva-based WCC and CEC represent Christian churches in the world and in Europe respectively, with the exception of the Roman Catholic Church. Their leaders met government officials and Greek Orthodox Church leaders during their visit.
European leaders were due to meet in Brussels from Thursday for difficult negotiations over EU spending in the period 2014-2020.
"In Greece, basic human services such as health care and even the availability of medicines are at severe risk," the letter from the WCC and CEC said.
"Together with the Church of Greece, we also take seriously the political and societal implications of growing racism and extremism in Greece," it said. "These are storm clouds on the horizon that cannot be ignored or wished away."
3W Roundtable II: Cairo
I'm here in Cairo, Egypt for the 2nd annual 3W Roundtable. Each year I am inviting a group of pastors that are great strategists, organizational thinkers, and missiologists to join me in a different field in the Europe/Middle East region to discuss the last year of events at 3W. In each case, these are leaders representing churches that have made very large investments into 3W: supporting multiple 3W staff, fields, and churches. It's part of our effort to be very transparent about the decisions we are making with their donations.
The 3W Roundtable also adds an extra layer of accountability for Jamie and me as we lead the Three Worlds team. Although we are confident in our leadership, we believe that it must be very clear who leaders are accountable to and that we should always be open to comments, criticisms, correction--particularly from those who are donating their hard earned money to make our work possible. There's nothing worse than leaders that live in a vacuum.
Our discussions last 3 full days and cover everything from field updates, to a review of how Jamie, Marco and I are doing personally, to discussions on finance and how we can better communicate and relate to these churches that are investing so heavily in the 3W vision. In this case, we also wanted to introduce the 3W Roundtable to the Oldham family, their home, and their work. That is why we are hosting it in Cairo this time. It was in Paris last year.
The most exciting part for everyone, I believe, is the case studies, where we come up with case studies that anticipate future challenges that 3W may face in the future. Usually there are 3 or 4 on different subjects. Everyone receives the case study a couple of months before the Roundtable begins and then once we are together, we work through the problems and challenges together. We don't just deal with the problems and challenges of the current day, but anticipate the challenges that the future might bring as well. Overall, it makes Three Worlds better and better every year. And if Jamie and I start to veer off in the wrong direction, they can provide a safeguard to keep us from making mistakes. But most of all, they are people that we trust, people who have a proven experience of being excellent organizational thinkers, and people that have clearly showed through their actions over the years that they care for our family and our teammates deeply. We greatly appreciate them and love working with them.
And I'm very excited about the fresh new host of ideas that they have brought to the table and look forward to implementing them in the future.
Farewell to the Varners
Last week, Aaron Varner took up his new position as the Administrative Pastor of South Lake Wales Church of God in Lake Wales, Florida. According to Nicole, "Aaron will be in charge of the day-to-day operations of the church, including overseeing the staff, managing the HR part of the church, coordinating the logistics for the construction of the new building and directing the missions and small group programs of the church.
Aaron served on the XZ Berlin team for 3 years and Aaron and Nicole helped us out for the first 2 years as we launched Three Worlds. They were an invaluable part of the team, and the whole team greatly enjoyed their time with them. We all have lots of great memories of our time together. There certainly was a lot of laughter, and they helped the USA-Germany CHOG partnership to grow closer than ever before. And they were instrumental in helping 3W establish its presence in this region as they visited different countries introducing our new system to the churches and countries we serve.
Now they have a new job and are anxiously awaiting the birth of their first child, baby Patrick Landon. We're excited for their new journey into the wonderful world of parenthood.
We're going to miss them. I'm especially going to miss firing Aaron. Aaron was fired a record 378 times by me. Usually for liking the wrong kind of music or some other flagrant violation. He was usually rehired shortly thereafter, since he was the only one who could solve my computer problems. Daniel Kihm will now be attempting to break that record. He's been fired once already (for liking girly movies like "the Notebook", but that's a long ways away from Aaron's record of 378.
We're proud of the Varners and we look forward to meeting baby Landon in the future.
