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.