Tragic News from Waco, TX

Got some news of tragedy today. Kyle Lake, pastor of University Baptist Church in Waco, TX died yesterday during a baptism that he was leading. Apparently he grabbed a mic while in the water and was electrocuted. I personally have been blessed by some of Kyle's writing through Relevant Books and the magazine.

Kyle's book, Understanding God's Will, was released exactly one year ago today.

Please be in prayer for Kyle's wife, three young kids, and the UBC community.

Adventures in Wedding Planning . . . and Ireland

I'm beginning to resign myself to the fact that my current situation in life will not allow me to have any sort of consistency in the blogosphere! Yesterday, Kristy and I spent what seemed like hours registering at Bed, Bath & Beyond and Target. (Click on the links for the registry at each place.) They finally kicked us out of Target at 10pm when it closed.

Kristy was able to pick flowers and colors (black and purple) for the wedding this last week. We also had a pre-marital counseling session, got the invitations out, met with the wedding coordinator, ordered our wedding bands, and decided on a tuxedo place.

On Tuesday, we went to a Switchfoot concert at the Ogden Theater in Denver. It was a great show and I was hoping to write up my own little review, but alas, wedding plans call. I'll say this for now, though: Jon Foreman has stage presence. I could tell the front man was battling a mild cold from the get-go. Just wasn't hitting the notes 100% and quite often was opting for the lower harmony notes. With his voice struggling and probably feeling other cold bug symptoms, Foreman made up for it with stage antics and, in response to chants from the crowd, a few spontaneous vintage numbers from the bands pre-Atlantic Records days.

In between all of the wedding preparations, Kristy and I were able to confirm that we are definitely headed for Ireland. For the sake of time, I'll just post part of an e-mail that I sent off to a few of our colleagues in Ireland today:

After a crazy process of prayer and consideration, Kristy and I have decided that Ireland will be our destination next summer. It was a bit unexpected for both of us, given our excitement to be involved with the church plant in Cologne, but it's much more consistent with my own heart burden for the UK/Ireland (oops, I mean Ireland/UK) corner of Europe. This is just one "pro" in a longer list than that of our Deutschland option. I look forward to talking through how I might split my time between the needs of GEM YM and my desire to apply my rather short inventory of gifts and abilities to the church planting dialogue in Ireland and the rest of Western Europe. I also look forward to seeing how God will use Kristy's many gifts and skills with GEM YM and in areas of social justice in Ireland.

Hoping to get some time this next week to blog a few thoughts from this great book I keep talking about (I know, I know - that's what I said last week!), as well as a few more details about our decision to head for Dublin. We'll see.

Prayer for Slovakia

Been busy with wedding prep this week, so I haven't had a chance to give much time to the blog. Last week, I tried getting caught up with some online prayer for Europe and I asked Kelly Shattuck if he could provide a prayer from his experience in Slovakia. Kelly and his family have been in that country for several years doing youth and camping ministry. (LINK) When asked about his ministry, Kelly's heart bleeds for that former communist country, once connected to the Czech Republic. (Czechoslovakia used to be my favorite word to say as a kid.)

"Father of Grace in Heaven, we pray for the leaders of our churches in Slovakia that they would experience the saving & keeping grace of Jesus Christ and live in intimacy with Him on a daily basis. Break the bonds of legalism. Shatter the fear of evangelism. Tear open the closed groups afraid of reaching out to new people. Free the Slovak believers in Christ from fear, doubt, negative self-image and restore to them the joy of their salvation, the peace that overcomes all doubt and the recognition of who they are in Jesus Christ.

"We also pray for the young people of Slovakia. We pray that there would be a revival of incredible proportions that would impact the entire world for Jesus Christ! We ask that Your Spirit would be free to mold the minds, dreams, desires and plans of the young disciples of Christ that they would radically change their youth ministries, churches, cities and country! Let them experience the joy of living by faith, not by sight or creed or legalism.

"Above all, we pray that every believer in Jesus Christ would be bold to build relationships with those who don't know Him and be free to share their love for You with them in the most practical and tangible of ways.

"Thank You, Lord, that You have heard our prayer and that You will answer in Your time. We look forward to that day! Amen!"

Thanks, Kelly! Our hearts and prayers are with you and your family and the people of Slovakia!

Coffee with an Attitude

I feel so spoiled back here in the States. There are at least 4 coffee shops with decent coffee along Academy Blvd. in Colorado Springs (3 with free wireless internet access) - and that's not even including the 3 or 4 Starbucks that I've seen around.

At the moment, I'm sitting in Peaberry and couldn't help but chuckle at their take-away cup wrapper thingy (what the heck do they call those things anyway?), pictured above. I can only assume they're taking a shot at a certain aforementioned coffee shop empire in particular.

Funny enough, on the back there's a patent number and "Portland, Oregon" in small print. I'd be careful, Peaberry. You mess with Seattle, you mess with the whole Pacific Northwest. You can't be pickin' a fight with Seattle and not expect little brother Portland to sit idly by, thinking it's your friend. =)

Hooray . . . A New Label from Barna

Okay, so that post title sounds really cynical, but the Barna article to which I'm referring is actually pretty interesting. (And I just happen to be growing especially tired of evangelical Christianity's preoccupation with labels.) The article is a summary of Barna's latest book, Revolution. Really, he just seems to be writing about the disillusionment of many Christ-followers in the U.S. (though it's happening all over western society) and the subsequent search for new forms of church that go beyond the status quo of most American evangelical "Christendom" churches. Could be an interesting read, especially in light of Barna's statistic/polling expertise, though I've got a growing "to read" list of books that will probably go deeper theologically than Barna's usual fare. I'm sure this one will be widely discussed throughout the blogosphere.

Thanks to Kristy for the link. Wait a minute - you're supposed to be shopping for wedding dresses with your mom today, not passing along blog fodder. =)

Wedding Plans and European Prayer Catch-Up

The last several days have been full of wedding plan activity. The wedding planning itself hasn't been too exciting, but it's been really good to be able to spend time with Kristy every day. Obviously, she's enjoying the whole thing more than me, which puts a little smile on my face to see her excitement. There's been a little stress, due primarily to the fact that we're just getting on top of some things that are usually done 3-5 months before a wedding (e.g., pre-marital counseling, purchase of a wedding dress, invitations, etc.) It's all good though. Hopefully the invitations will be going out in the mail tomorrow or Friday. We got some help from a woman who works at Kinkos named Heidi. Heidi was a student in the youth ministry where I interned during my Bible college years. It's been good to see her and talk about some memories that we share together from our days at Brush Prairie Baptist Church.

In the midst of all this transitioning back into life in these United States and wedding planning, I realized today that I've neglected my personal commitment to pray for Europe! So I'm hoping to get back into that. I've missed Russia, Slovakia, and Slovenia. (Kristy posted a nice little prayer for Romania, if you hadn't noticed.)

I think Russia could particularly use prayer in light of the corruption that exists at so many different levels of society, due in part to a former-KGB president who regrets the fall of communism and the Soviet Union. Pray that God's people would exist there as a voice of light and redemption and Jesus-like character.

I'm going to try and have a colleague in Slovakia provide a prayer for that county, since he has been doing youth ministry there for several years.

And Slovenia? I have absolutely no idea how to pray for that country. Try the link above for some prayer requests, and then click here for more info. about the country. Answers.com always has a wealth of information as well.

That's it for now. I'm currently reading a book that has me doing some very deep thinking about the missional nature of the church. I'm hoping to blog some thoughts from that book in the near future. Stay tuned . . .

The Eagle Has Landed

Kristy and I landed in Denver on Sunday night, just before a large snow storm blew through the area. The next morning, we woke to 7 inches of snow. On Tuesday, we packed up Kristy's belongings that were being stored at her parents' place in the Denver area and headed down to her townhouse in Colorado Springs. That night, I went over to the Roberts' place, where I'll be staying until the wedding.

The last few days have been full of sunny weather (the snow didn't last long - that's Colorado for ya!) and many efforts to get settled in with such basic modern luxuries as phone and broadband service.

Observations that have sent my head spinning since arriving back:
1. Cell phone service is ridiculously expensive and not nearly as accessible here in the States as it is in Europe, especially if you're not interested in signing 2 years of your life away with Verizon.

2. All this space to drive on the roads makes me dizzy. Could it be that I actually miss the smaller, narrower streets of England?! Maybe I've just developed a case of agoraphobia.

3. The variety of choice in restaurants and coffee shops is bewildering. This is a strange one for me. I love the convenience of having at least 3 different coffee shops around with with great coffee and free wireless internet, but at the same time, all these places to eat and shop and . . . well, consume . . . it just all smacks of materialism and vanity.

It reminds me of something I came across in cyberspace recently.

Own Less
If you don't own the latest thing,
it won't go out of date.
If you don't own much,
you won't have much to lose.
If you own next to nothing,
you won't worry about ending up with nothing.
If you own less than you want,
you will still have more than you need.
If you spend less money on things,
you can spend more time on you.
If you own less, you will value it more.
If you own only what you can carry,
you will carry less baggage around with you.
Travel light.

(HT: Jonny Baker)

En Route to Colorado

Kristy and I are travelling back to the States separately today. Would’ve cost us a good $100+ to travel on the same flight. I was hoping to get some Wi-Fi action here, but I only seem to be able to pick up a weak T-Mobile signal, way out here in gate 3 of terminal 4. Aside from that, I can’t even find any electrical outlets. Almost makes me feel like I’m in a cyber-countryside, where things are slow in catching up with the technology of the WWW urban sprawl. Wow – I sound like a techno-geek.

When I got to the check out counter, the lady made me take a book and a pair of jeans out of my big suitcase and put it in the smaller one to bring it down 1 freakin’ kg to the international weight limit. Worse yet, my laptop briefcase weighed 12 kilos, 6 over the limit. I have never had to off load my briefcase on a flight to be checked in. So I took the laptop bag out and proceeded to stuff it with some magazines and the book I’m currently reading, along with my Palm. When I got up to the security line, it hit me that I’d left my MP3 player in the main briefcase, which would be enjoying it’s first ride in the belly of a Boeing 777. Under my breath, I said one of those swear words that are permissible in Britain, but still taboo in American evangelical Christianity.

Walking through the airport on the way to my departure gate, I noticed an “inter-faith” prayer room. This is the first time I’ve flown out of Heathrow through terminal 4 and I’ve never seen an inter-prayer room in any of the other terminals, or even any of the other airports for that matter. There was one Muslim man in the room who had spread out a prayer mat and looked like he was preparing to bow toward the east. Couldn’t help but wonder how followers of The Way might plug in with such prayer rooms in redemptive ways. (And I don’t mean leaving gospel tracts littered throughout the room.)

Report from Dublin

Kristy and I are having a great time here in Dublin. There's been an absolute flurry of activity in church planting dialogue here in recent days. This past weekend, Jonny Baker was here speaking for a Church of Ireland group. When Kristy and I arrived at the GEM Youth Ministry office on Tuesday, I was pleasantly surprised with an opportunity to meet Andrew Jones and chat about emerging church stuff for a brief amount of time. He titles his blog "Tall Skinny Kiwi," and after meeting him in person, I can confirm that he is all three. The guy read three different books during his stay of maybe 24 hours here in Dublin, including "Blue Like Jazz." Since he lived and ministered in the Portland (OR) area for a few years, he knew many of the Portland sites mentioned by Donald Miller. The Jones family was staying with Phil Kingsley (the GEM Ireland field director) en route to the U.S. Phil's eldest son, Matt, and his family have recently joined the GEM Youth Ministry team here in Dublin and he has written up a little blog post of his own about hanging out with Andrew.

On Tuesday evening, we joined a group of church planters for a pint of Guinness at this traditional Irish pub with brilliant live music. It was essentially just 3 people with fiddles and I think some traditional Irish instruments playing softly in the background. Coolest pub experience I've ever had. Was also blessed by a conversation with a guy named Will from the mid-west U.S. who had been living in Dublin for three years, just getting to know Irish culture and connecting with people in various settings, looking for ways that God is at work in Ireland.

Anyway, more later. Time for bed. Tomorrow, Jon Covell is taking Kristy and I out to the Irish countryside to some ancient castle and celtic ruin sites. We fly back to Luton late tomorrow night.