Tall Skinny Kiwi

A smooch and a free massage for our sponsors

So I woke up this morning to see someone on Twitter raising funds for Those Joneses and then I realized  . .  What the heck??? . .  Thats OUR family!!!!! What a surprise!!!

And not only that, but the website was offering smooches and free massages and a week's vacation in Austin or Port Townsend. I thought it was hilarious and I read it out loud to my wife and kids and they laughed like crazy.

But I still couldn't see who had put up this website and who was trying to raise money for our USA trip. But then on the very bottom I saw the two guerrilla fundraisers - Whitney Standerfer and our naughty son Sam, who btw has started a blog and has suddenly earned his father's warm-hearted approval, manifested of course in true blogger-geek fashion, by a HYPERTEXT LINK to his blog which is called The Misadventures of Sam and Donald. There ya go, son, don't say I never gave you nothin'!

So thanks you guys for the site. And to those of you already giving some lovin'. And don't worry - it wont be me giving the massage! Or the smooch . .  unless you really want one. {:-]

We are coming to USA: Need your help!

Big news! Our family is returning to USA for a coast to coast tour, starting late September in New York and going down, then westward through Texas, up to Oregon and down the West Coast.

Why now? Well, it is kinda sudden, isn't it?  One of the biggest reasons is because we were denied a visa extension in UK and our time on the European mainland is limited to 3 months - which is over in a few weeks. We were hoping to drive over to India but the time is not right, esp. with the roads being washed out in Pakistan. So we will go back to USA for a bit.

Also, we need to reestablish our kid's homeschooling in USA and we hope to do this in Texas.

Also, its been 5 years since our family was home in USA so it will be a good time to thank the people and churches that have supported us during that time.

And since we will be in USA anyway, it will be a good opportunity to explore what God is doing among the next generation of missional entrepreneurs. So yes, I would like to set up a few informal meetings where we have invitations. Some of you have already contacted us. Email me if you think its worth us coming to your city.

What do we need right now? Thanks for asking [yeah right!].

WE NEED:
1. Someone in Europe to look after Inigo Montoya, our Spanish dog, until we return. He is 6 months old and well trained. . . OK . ..  partially trained but very lovable.
2. An American van, camper van or motorhome to use for a few months. Dang, even a beat-up old car would work. Or if that fails, a series of rides to get us around from city to city.
3. Some kind people to open their homes as we pass through, or, in warmer climates, let us put up some tents in their backyard. But you have to let me cook crepes on Sunday mornings.
4. A big shed or storage area for our motorhome in Europe.
5. Someone with a big wad of cash to buy our family a plane ticket to USA.
6. Some kind people to pray for us during this crazy time.

UPDATE. Sep 2: OK - it looks like our dog will get a holiday with the Mudrik family in Prague [if its ok with their landlord] and some dear friends in USA have put up a site to raise funds for us and they are offering free smooches, massages, and even vacations in Austin, Texas or Port Townsend, Washington State. Really!

How Many People Attended the 'Restoring Honor' Rally?

Thousands of people gathering around a large vertical object to discuss plans of posterity. NO, I am not talking about the Tower of Babel. I'm talking about Glenn Beck's  Restoring Honor rally at Washington DC last weekend.

The event was described as a "church picnic with a buzz" and the "Waterworld of white self-pity". The attendance figures are disputed but Newser website has a few estimates, ranging from 78,000 to 650,000. The latter suggested as the high end by Glenn Beck himself.

Why are church people, even Mormon church people, so infatuated with numbers? And why do churches say they have more people than they actually do? In my blog post "How to estimate church attendance" I interpret how the denominations arrive at their numbers.

As for an evangelical response to the rally, check out this SLTRIB article on who is friendly and who isn't and this one on the weirdness of Beck as a Mormon who is leading conservative Christians. I think Get Religion was right in a scary kinda way to call it "Civil Religion".

As for Glenn Beck, he has just launched The Blaze. HT: Buzzfeed

The People Formerly Known as the Congregation

A 2007 blog post from Bill Kinnon impacts one homeschooling mother who brings it back to life for the St Louis Post-Dispatch in a post entitled Giving Thanks for the Emerging Church. This quote from Bill's post, called The People Formerly Known as The Congregation, struck me as being powerful.

"We grew weary from your Edifice Complex pathologies – building projects more important than the people in your neighbourhood…or in your pews. It wasn’t God telling you to “enlarge the place of your tent” – it was your ego. And, by the way, a multi-million dollar, state of the art building is hardly a tent."

The Theology of Dr Seuss

A blog post on The Sneetches made me think of Dr Seuss's books and the theology behind it. I left this comment on the blog:

"I love Dr Seuss. The first sermon I ever preached at one of the churches I pastored [North Beach Baptist Church, Perth, West Australia] started with a reading from Green Eggs and Ham - it talked about the ability to try new things. Much theology in the Sneetches also, of course."

Oh yeah and I spelled Seuss wrong in the title but have corrected it. Sorry.

Social enterprise and mission-shaped mission

"Mission-shaped mission" is a phrase that came to mind a few weeks ago. If mission shaped churches no longer resemble traditional churches then mission-shaped mission also will be hard to recognize, since it takes its shape from factors other than the modern missions movement (1791 - 1991).

Some of the most exciting mission projects I have seen [and supported] recently have stayed under the radar. Like the new social enterprises that are run from a Christian base. A good example is the viable social enterprise that my dear friends Shannon Hopkins and Jessica Stricker have been working on and the Boaz Project has been pleased to sponsor in a small way. I won't pimp it again here because I have raved on and on about Sweet Notions and the way they are creating value out of recycled fashion to help vulnerable women. But I will put up their new video because its just DANG GOOD and fun to watch. Even if you don't like pink.

Sweet Notions from ilovepinatas on Vimeo.

And you might be interested in the Sweet Notions Boutique Event in London Sep 16th. Ask Shannon for more details.

Thinking about Greenbelt but NOT THERE this year!

Greetings to all my friends at Greenbelt Festival. In spite of all the "See you there at Greenbelt" messages I am getting, I am actually NOT SPEAKING at Greenbelt this year. I decided that after 7 years in a row, that I would take a break this year. Ahhhhhhh. Feels good.

But I am thinking of all my friends there and the incredible memories we have shared over the years and hope you all have a great time.

The Nines Online Conference

The Nines is an online conference coming up Sep 9.

The theme is "Gamechangers".

100 speakers, including me (no doubt that will be the HIGHLIGHT!).

My 6 minute talk is called . . .  "Gamechanger". Original, heh???

Its free but you can also register and get lots of good stuff.

Some people are hosting small parties to watch it. Sounds like fun. You can get a free Group Experience kit and host one yourself if you want.

Last year #thenines was a trending topic on Twitter. Not many Christian conferences have ever pulled that off. I expect they will do it again this year.

Naked Pastor Cartoon Fest

Naked Pastor (David) is showing his many cartoons on his blog. Nice!

Best of Freakstock 2010

Freakstock Festival, hosted by the Jesus Freaks in Germany, was a blast this year. Here is what I thought was the best of Freakstock 2010

Best Mullet: Simon kicked ass. Hey, is that Bill Hybels on the t-shirt?


Cutest Couple: Yes he is really that tall and she is really that short and yes, they are married.


Best Band: I liked Red Rain from New Zealand the most. But then I am a Kiwi and probably biased.

Coolest Caravan: These guys from JFI Netherlands.

And check out what they towed it with:

Best Motorhome from a Firetruck: There were at least 3 of them but this 1971? was a great example.

18 Countries in 3 months.

Our travels have taken us to 18 countries in the past 3 months. Whewww!!!!!!!!!  Some of those borders were tough and wearing - Serbia in particular. I have a lot of stuff to blog but it will take some time to get organized. At the moment, we are fixing a wheel on our truck while staying at a squat in Germany. I am a little tired of traveling at the moment and yet I keep wondering if we should drive over to Pakistan to help with the floods and relocation of people.

Maybe we should just rest a little first?

The Future of the People of God

Andrew Perriman, who was at the Christian Associates gathering last week in Germany,  gave me his new book "The Future of the People of God: Reading Romans Before and After Western Christendom." Thanks Andrew!! I had an enjoyable Sunday reading through the book.

Perriman's book is great contribution to the current conversation on Romans, in light of the New Perspectives on Paul and the Reformed theologians attempt to defend their territory. At the heart of his book is the argument that Paul writes the letter to the Romans to prepare them for the suffering that is coming upon them, something that is located historically and temporally in the oikoumene of the Grecian-Roman empire, something related directly to the persecution under Roman leaders and the disastrous war of AD 66-73, and Paul writes without the privilege of foresight into a future where Christianity becomes the dominant religion. This special focus on suffering and "living by faith(fulness)" in order to allow the people of God to stay intact through the suffering gives a strong eschatological and martylogical reading to Romans, one more localised than N.T. Wright, distinct from other New Perspective writers, and certainly a long way from Reformed authors, and yet the focus is still on the glory of God and his righteousness in keeping his promise to Abraham to establish and preserve a community that would bless the nations.

One issue that will make good conversation among the Anabaptist crowd is Perriman's argument that the vindication of God's righteousness, the remnant that is saved from the Day of the Lord and established because of its faith(fulness), the community of the Son of Man that inherits the nations as prophesied by Daniel, is shown to be Christendom as instituted by Constantine. Yep, Constantine.

Another more important tension that Perriman offers to relieve is that of the identity and status of the church after 1700 years of Christendom, especially when many of our favourite Bible passages are seen to be directed at another time [dispensation?] and cannot be applied directly to the forehead without allowing them to run their course inside a much smaller geographically and historically constricted boundary. This is where the final chapter could use a caffeine injection, or at least something as robust as its earlier arguments, but is actually quite silent in the face of an unforeseen future. But it is here that Perriman has written extensively in another book -  Re:Mission: Biblical mission for a post-biblical church - a book that explores ways for the church to live out its mission of being a new creation community.

Interesting: The Future of the People of God is dedicated on the inside cover to "Linus". Linus (Morris), a founder of Christian Associates, was at the meeting last week and I watched Andrew ceremoniously hand him a copy of the book. What's interesting to me is that Hal Lindsey, Linus's friend and one of the early leaders in Christian Associates, had such a huge influence on popular eschatology from his book The Late Great Planet Earth (1970), a book that suggested that the Boomer generation was enjoying the spotlight of ancient Biblical prophecy which was now suddenly coming to life in the arena of global politics in the late twentieth century - something quite the opposite of Perriman's book - but persuasive enough to launch a movement in popular eschatology, culminating in some really interesting B-grade movies and the Left Behind series of books. Amazing to see how the next generation approaches eschatological texts from such a different stance and finds it easier to admit that they are not the center of the universe.

Anyway, I highly recommend Andrew Perrimans' new book. It's well written, well researched, concise, original and brave. Its even better than his earlier books, possibly because of its bounded subject.

Related but totally different: Best Ever Rapture Movie Posters

A Christian HIPSTER to some degree

I just took a quiz and found out I am a "Christian hipster to some degree" with a score of 78/120.

Points given for these questions:


Points taken away for this one


Oh well. Cant win 'em all.

Jesus Freaks Cologne this Sunday at 7pm

I am speaking at the Jesus Freak church in Cologne, Germany, this Sunday night at 7pm. Come over and say hello if you live in the area. And check out this article on the Jesus Freaks that talks about their history.

One of my talks at Global Connect

Such a great week with Christian Associates at their Global Connect gathering. I cant believe they put up with me speaking so many times. What incredible perseverance!

Rogier Bos of Next Wave fame was on hand to take some photos like this one.



Here's part of my Monday evening talk. The other part included a Bible reading with a Sigur Ros video.

Andrew Jones, Untitled Talk at Global connect

At Global Connect

This weekend I am speaking at Global Connect, a conference organized by and for Christian Associates International. Great people!!!! I really love hanging around them. They are inspiring! Which is partly why I accepted their invitation to speak. The other reason is because the folk connected with Christian Associates are some of the most cutting edge and intentionally missional people you will ever meet. Their founder, Linus Morris, is here [we met in Budapest about 8 years ago] and the new president Rob Fairbanks. Both incredible people.

The theme of the conference is "Being the Body" and my part, apart from just being really really ridiculously good looking, will be exploring the contours of a Biblical ecclesiology to match our strategies for the next season. One question I would like to address is related to all the missional church books everyone has been reading and look at a few assumptions, some challenges and possibly some detours that will help us all move ahead.

If you are here at the conference and want to help me out, which I hope you will do, check out David Fitch's blog post from a few weeks ago and start formulating a response. Is the missional church idea "fundamentally flawed"? Did Alan Hirsch and Michael Frost attempt to "de-ecclesiologize the church"? If the church dispersed lacks visibility due to the abandonment or non-investment in institutional structures, how can we make the invisible visible?

If you cant be with us here in Germany, you can follow the conference on Twitter or Facebook

The emerging church and their stupid, silly names!

Some classic quotes on the emerging church from Stephen Holland of Westhoughton Evangelical Church from the sermon "The Emerging Church - The Latest Heresy"

"They all have strange names! They don't have, you know, Emergent Evangelical Church or Emergent Church. They have stupid, silly names!"

This is true. You wouldn't believe the names I have come across. And a pastor in Germany last week told me that their new church plant doesn't have a name and doesn't want one. What would the Apostle Paul think of that?

"In the United States there was a group of people gathering together that met. None of them seemed to have much theological understanding at all but they seemed to get together and hold conferences. And out of this grew the emerging church."

Thats FUNNY!! Well, I was one of those people and yep . . . no argument there, except that the emerging church was already raging around the world and this group (Young Leaders sponsored by Leadership Network) was just one of the many.

Also in the sermon is a great moment, somewhere during a critique of "Emergent leader Michael Moynagh's" book EmergingChurch.intro, when "Emergent leader George Lings" gets a good THRASHING for suggesting that the Bible testifies to the creative power of God. My gosh!

After slamming the missional church and emerging church for "experimentation", Stephen Holland points to William Carey as an example. Now here I have to jump in and politely disagree with the preacher, or at least ask a question:

To what extent was William Carey "experimental" when he arrived on the shores of India. Did he know instinctively what to do after spending his life in England or did he have some trial and error as he set up his printing business and translation work? Thoughts?

Related: George Lings on emerging church. Read more about George, his commitment to re-imagine church and his rampant experimentation here. You have probably already read his contributions to Mission Shaped Church. A wonderful fellow, is George and as you can tell, I am standing with him on this one.

Speaking at Artcross

Artcross happens in Linz, Austria this week and I am speaking there Tuesday night on the subject of arts and the church. If you live in the area, come over and say hi.

Are bloggers just a bunch of pajama-wearin' coffee-sippin' armchair-theoblogians

An apology to my readers: I am REALLY REALLY sorry my blog has sucked recently. For the past few months I have been lucky to post once or twice a week.

The reason?

Well, so much has been happening, in so many different places (we have been to about 12 countries in the past 3 months) and SO FEW WIFI SIGNALS, or at least so few wifi signals without passwords, and so little time to blog.

A THOUGHT ABOUT BLOGGING: The moments when my life is really exciting and I have plenty to blog about are the EXACT SAME MOMENTS when I am not able to blog because I am in weird countries without WIFI or have no time to write down what is happening.

And the moments when I have plenty of time to blog and surf other blogs are the EXACT SAME MOMENTS when nothing much is going on.

So, in conclusion, whoever said that bloggers are just a bunch of pajama-wearin' coffee-sippin' armchair-theoblogians who need to get a life and move out of their momma's house . . . was actually not far from the truth.

When your advertising pop-ups say more than you do

Some blog posts are just funny and when the wrong advertisements pop up, the message gets distorted and things can get absolutely hilarious.

Here's one today called "Emerging Church Exposed and Defined" that has two advertisements (at least here in Germany) for a body scanner that EXPOSES people and reveals their underwear. It adds a whole new slant to the subject material which was exposing the emerging church's supposed Biblical weaknesses.

I was reading it because one of the criticisms of the emerging church was that they "dont conceive we crapper undergo Absolute Biblical Truth" and i was wondering if they were using insider language that only a few enlightened people would understand but NOT those who dont have ears to hear. But then I saw the ads and things got interesting. Funny. Not sure if I should be blogging it  . ..  but . . I'm in a festival mood so here is the screenshot of the 'exposure':



And if you think that is too revealing, I wont even tell you about the ad that popped up the next time I looked.

SUGGESTION: If you cant control your ads, perhaps its time to remove them.

Interesting People: Philip and Sari Shorey

Here are some really interesting people I met at Slot Festival this month.



Philip and Sari Shorey are from Steiger Ministries in Minneapolis but right now they are taking their very Retro-Carnie looking Suitcase Sideshow around Europe. Last week a few people decided to get their lives right with God after their show - fantastic! This week they will be performing at the Polish Woodstock which gets, I heard, about 500,000 people.



Europe Mission Update: Steiger is moving into their new base in Krogis, near Dresden, Germany. Actually, a number of new ministries are popping up in the Prague-Dresden circle which makes me think that a new ministry base is in fact taking shape, one that is peopled primarily by a younger generation and one that will replace the older Budapest-Vienna circle that more established mission organizations used as a platform to launch out into central and eastern Europe.

Freakstock Festival 2010

Next week we will be at Freakstock Festival in Germany. The theme this year at Freakstock is "Beine in Die Hand" which means "LIFT UP YOUR FEET".



Our kids are volunteering this year since the number of volunteers is down and they could use some help. [HINT HINT].  And musician Daniel Benjamin is looking for 100 guitarists to help him for a mega-improv.

Me?  I will be spending time with many of the leaders there who have invited me to chat to them on some key issues. Should be good. I always enjoy hanging with the Jesus Freaks. Last year rocked. Here are some reflections on 2009 and 2006 when we hosted a global leadership roundtable inside Freakstock.

Global Connect Conference August 7-15

I will be speaking at the Global Connect Conference in Kirchheim, Germany next month. Christian Associates International is an incredible group of people who I have enjoyed partnering with for nearly a decade, ever since Linus Morris asked to me speak to the group in Budapest, 2003. Linus has since handed the reins over to Rob Fairbanks and the future looks bright for this group of missional high-achievers, but not without its challenges. Pray for me that I grasp what those challenges are and respond with the hopeful message of God's Word that equips us for every good work!!!

Salvation Army in Chemnitz

We are staying at the Salvation Army house in Chemnitz, Germany, and about to have a huge breakfast with homeless and low income families. We should be here for a few days while a team of volunteer mechanics work on our truck.

Its funny being in a house after a year and a half on the road. The last time our family slept in a house, apart from a brief stay in a hostel in Prague and mission hospitality house in London, was a year ago. Thats a long time.

We are Powered By Wings

People are asking us how we are supporting ourselves in our travels. Where does the money for diesel come from?

Well, apart from a number of recent gifts that have helped us get to all the cities we needed to be in, we are making and selling angel wings. You could say that we are powered by wings.

When we went to Poland last week we didn't have enough money for diesel to get back and I was wondering if we would get stuck in Poland. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing - its a nice country and there is an abundance of potatoes. But as it worked out, we set up a tent where my wife helped young Polish girls make angel wings for a donation.

It was a lot of fun and the donations helped us get back to Prague. It was also life changing for all of us. Read my wife's account here on her post "Powered By Wings".