Tall Skinny Kiwi

Did the Magi Wear Mullets?

Another Christmas post from last year that I need to resize and repost. Here it is, and have a very mullet Christmas!

Original: BIG QUESTION this Christmas:

Were the Magi wearing mullets under their hats?
Did the wise men from the east wear bi-level haircuts when they found the infant Jesus?
Were the dudes bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh spotting a hairstyle that was, as David Spade would say,  "all business at the front and party at the back"?

I think YES! The Magi TOTALLY had mullets! And artists through the centuries have given witness.

But don't just believe the artists. Bi-level hairstyles mullets were the preferred choice of Persian aristocracy and the wise men were representing the King of Persia. Makes perfect sense.

"Magi", btw, is a Persian word that once defined the priestly class of Zoroastrian spiritual leaders who followed and added to the writings of Zoroaster. Later on it was used more broadly for other Persian religious leaders and mystical teachers. But the origin of the word certainly points to Persia. And Persia points to mullets for the upper class. Or in other words, anyone who was anyone in ancient Persia would not be seen dead without a mullet adorning their head.

Ahhh, you say! Perhaps not! Since the Magi were Zoroastrian priests, their hairstyles may have been quite different to that of Persian royalty and aristocracy?

But, after stroking my chin and complimenting you on your academic prowlness, as well as your amazing google dexterity, I would counter your argument with this:

"Hah!!!"

And when you had gotten up off the floor, and composed yourself, I would add that the Magi who visited Jesus were not probably not strictly Zoroastrian. The true Zoroastrians were expecting a Saoshyant [world redeemer] born of a virgin in Persia, not one in Palestine. Not only that but by the time the Zoroastrian Avesta (holy writings] had been completed, there were prophecies that spoke of not just one but three distinct Saoshyants, all born of a virgin, and all born by a certain Iranian river.

Saoshyant, yes. And its amazing how many world religions had an inkling of the Redeemer's birth before it happened. But Jesus was born in a shed by the inn, not in a cara-van down by the river. (sorry - Chris Farley joke)

Besides that, even being purely Zorastrian would not discount the idea that the wise men wore mullets. King Darius the Great was both a Persian king AND a devout Zoroastrian - a worshipper of "AhuraMazda" [Lord Mazda] - and his hair was longer than Billy Ray Cyrus.

Its hard to make out exactly how short Darius's hair was on top, since he was usually pictured wearing a royal headpiece. However, judging by the statues of Darius, I am quite certain that when he took his off headgear to let down his long braided hair, he would have boasted a mullet that would win trophies at the local tractor show!

Also, the type of gifts given to Jesus by the Magi were the type of gifts typically given to kings. It seems obvious that these wise men were both spiritual and governmental leaders, representing their King and most likely wearing the kind of clothes and hairstyle [ie - MULLETS!] that their King would expect from his ambassadors.

So yes, the Magi wore mullets. Friggin' "A" they wore mullets . . . and you can quote me on that! Hope this contributes a little towards a red-neck theology and that it inspires a new line of Christmas cards from Hallmark - cards that the rest of us can appreciate. Have a very Mullet Christmas!

This blog post is dedicated to Steve Camp - musician, reformer, blogger, and former mullet champion.

Technorati Tags: magi, mullet, wise men

Christmas Medley

Its very retro and terribly dated and you really had to be there, but here's an old Christmas geeky poem I wrote in 2005.

All I want for Christmas is Ajax

All I want for Christmas is Ajax
I don't want a tall skinny tree
or lots of presents under it.
All I ask for are some Web 2.0 goodies
that are zipped and not wrapped.
I want PHP and not PAJAMAS.
Give me widgets and not gadgets.
Give me a torrent of flashy de.licio.us gifts that flickr brightly under MySQL clouds.
I want Wiki and not wassel.
I want Christmas feeds and not Christmas food.
I want shareware and freeware and not underwear.
I want my OPML Christmas list to be meta-tagged and checked twice by automated folksonomy-based aggregators exhibiting an emergent Christmas cheer that can be mapped visually and dynamically on my poor and miserable blog that limps along like Tiny Tim on the pathetic crutches of Web 1.0 architecture.
All I want for Christmas is Ajax.

Andrew Jones, 2005

And a few other Christmas posts from years gone by:

The most famous Christmas Eve ever

Always Easter but never Christmas

Cruelty-Free Christmas Feast

George Mackay Brown poem and Christmas message

Catching Up

Christmas Greetings everyone. Haven't blogged for a week. We are have been sitting out an unexpected cold spell by wild camping in the mountains in our truck. I got a bit of a cold and was in bed for a day or two but bouncing back. We are currently at a camping place in the mountains of Portugal and do not have phone or internet access. Weather is good now.

Christmas giveaway: Ed offers his Coffeehouse Theology study guide as a free download.

Still waiting on visa stuff and also for more funding to get us into North Africa.

Earthquake this morning. Our truck rocked and Debbie thought someone had jumped on it.

More later.

Kiva and faith-based micro-finance

The Kiva Effect is a great article on micro-finance and faith based micro-credit unions. Thanks to CT for publishing it and Becky for the HT. Of course there are a lot of these initiatives that escape the media's eye. Check out my post on emerging philanthropy and the Indian Taxi Fund.

Related: I read a book from the 1960's on Christian cooperatives and the work of Roman Catholic missionary Father Topshee. He created micro-credit unions for Pacific Islanders to help them become sustainable. He figured out that it only takes 100 people to launch a successful cooperative.

Best Ever Rapture Movie Posters

Matthew Paul Turner has a collection of the best rapture paintings including some tips on how to make them - like including HEADSTONES. Not bad. In response to MPT, here are what I think are the 3 best ever rapture movie posters:

1 A Thief in the Night, 1972. The movie that gave us Larry Norman's "I Wish We'd All Been Ready" theme song and by far the best rapture movie poster. Even better, imho, would have been that scene with lawnmower running all by itself, its operator sucked up suddenly into the heavenlies. Didn't see the movie? Check out a clip here.

2 A Distant Thunder, 1978. I love that strained look of anxiety on her face. Ahhhh!!!!! It happened, exactly as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye predicted it would. Armageddon outta here!

3 The Prodigal Planet, 1983. Is that a walkie-talkie or a phone? Whatever it is, something is terribly, terribly, wrong! But nothing wrong, apparently, with his eschatology.

RUNNER UP Image of the Beast, 1980. Why the long face? It's not the end of the world!!

Anyway, enough paranoia for one day. Now to get back to Obama's Peace Prize speech in Norway.

Rocking on Christmas

Rock on Christmas Festival was a great experience. Thanks for your prayers and support. The attendance was less than we hoped for but we all had a fantastic time and pretty much everyone is making plans to do it again next year and maybe add a country or three to the tour.

Mark Richard Jordan, a Methodist pastor and wicked drummer for the Sanctuary Worship Band, took some photos. He liked our truck as well as our children. More photos and video coming from me later in the week. Right now we are taking off for some R&R with the family. No - that rest and relaxation, NOT rock and roll.

Emerging Church and Black Rimmed Glasses

Here's one for the theologs. Guess the person behind the black rimmed glasses? Answer at the end of the post.

From the fantastical mind of Todd Heistand, Karl Barth has a beer and a smoke and a chat with emerging church leaders. Nice post, although I cant imagine a room full of emerging church leaders hanging in a German pub with Karl Barth WITHOUT the majority of them being German and not American. And I say that from being in many of those meetings in Germany, hanging with the Germans, although without Karl Barth.

And if I was blogging it, as I was in Todd's dream, I would no doubt discuss Barth's impact on missiology more than theology, in particular his understanding of 'missio dei" that would later inform the idea in its current incarnation as "missional". More on that here. Besides, that, good post Todd!

Who's behind the glasses? Tony Jones, Rob Bell, and, you guessed it . . . Karl Barth.

Rock Bands turning up here for our REALLY BIG PARTY

Ahhhh its CRAAAAAZY around here!! We are really busy, setting up to throw a huge party this weekend called Rock on Christmas, the brainchild of Denny Hurst who turned up this afternoon. The festival starts tomorrow and we have been sweeping out this old warehouse and watching people set up the stage and deliver the generator and drop off all kinds of things. People sleeping on couches and mattresses on floor all around us. REALLY nice people, despite how many of them dress in black. I guess black must be the new black?

9 bands are coming down to help us rock this city - Olhao, Portugal - the poorest city in Western Europe. We are also showing some videos that share the good news about Jesus like Walking on Water and some shorter ones from Teen Challenge, 24-7 Prayer, etc.

I had a really good chat today with Rob Cassels from the foothills of South Carolina [needs a translator into English] and Pastor Bob Beeman from Tennesse who is here with his band. Pastor Bob (pictured) introduced me to his band as the "guy who started him blogging" which is a wonderful compliment but the whole "Getting Naked with Pastor Bob" idea was entirely his! Hey - bet you cant guess what color his blog is? Yeah . . . its black. Good guess.

EVERYONE is volunteering here. The bands are paying their own way so we are only charging 5 Euros which should cover most of the costs. The best way you could help us this weekend is by checking out the bands below and BUYING ONE OF THEIR CDS. That would be great. Here they are, and give a shout out to them if you know them.

Verra Cruz

Rob Cassels Band

Triplet

S.O.C.O.M.

Boarders

Memorial Death

Desso Blues Gang

Sanctuary Worship Band

Cast a Fire

rock on christmas

The Manhattan Declaration and why we didn't sign it

150,000 Americans have already signed the Manhattan Declaration, released last week. But not us.

"We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are:

1. the sanctity of human life
2. 
   
3. the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife
4. 
   
5. the rights of conscience and religious liberty."

The loudest voice on my radar in favor of the MD was Big Al Mohler, who is "not usually inclined" to sign petitions or declarations. The ultra-conservatives booed it down, mainly because of the presence of the Catholics and Orthodox or assuming it was a statement about the gospel. Steve Camp called it the "New Downgrade and John MacArthur rejected it as he did the Evangelicals and Catholics Together document. The liberals tended to shy away from it also.

I read it through with my American wife. The reason we didn't sign it is not because we didn't affirm the 3 points, because we did. Nor is it about the ecclesiastic bedfellows with funny hats and robes. In fact, I think it is healthy to not forsake the assembling of ourselves around issues we agree on. It sends a signal that there is one church, bigger than we think and smaller at the same time, which, surprisingly, is true. Our decision not to sign has more to do with not knowing how our vote will be used in the long tail of American politics.

And besides that, I really believe societal change happens from the grassroots, when people make friends and tell stories, more than trying to push papers to politicians. When the church forgets how to make friends and tell stories, they have to resort to less personal, less effective means.

I have 3 stories that come to mind about choices we have made:

[hey - i made a boo-boo here. My 3 stories have disappeared because i downloaded this post into iblogger on my iphone and the extended part didnt make it. when it resent the post, it lost them. I will repost them on a different post, maybe tomorrow.]

manhattan declaration

What ever happened to the girl who started the emerging church network?

Well, she's in her thirties now so you can no longer call her a "girl" without getting into trouble, but whatever happened to Shannon Hopkins?

In the nineties, after being part of the Young Leaders 1998 event in New Mexico [where we first met] she helped to launch a coffee-shop kinda church called Soul Cafe, one of the first emerging church expressions in Texas. Then she pulled key leaders together around Texas and the emerging church network was formed. After that, she hosted a number of incredible alt. worship experiences like Wabi Sabi and Doxology. I was there. They rocked!

Then she shifted her base to London to work alongside us in a new focus on Europe as well as USA, And taking the missional idea even further, she has been launching mission-shaped social enterprises and campaigns that have had an even greater impact than her previous efforts.

She started a network of young Christian business entrepreneurs in London called NET - Network of Entrepreneurial Talent. She helped to halt the flow of human trafficking through The Truth Isnt Sexy beer-mat campaign [image above]. She has been shaking the world of social enterprise through Sweet Notions, training social entrepreneurs at Greenbelt Festival, challenging the church to think different, and developing a holistic measuring tool for social enterprises called the Transformational Index. Which is what we were doing in New York a few months ago.

Like many missional entrepreneurs, Shannon hasn't used the term "emerging church" for quite a few years, and she cringes when she hears me say it. The EC conversation got stuck a long time ago, Shannon would say, and no longer described her. No longer described us.

What's really cool is that Soul Cafe is raising money for Shannon's next season through a raffle. $5 a ticket and you can win a trip for two to London, including accommodation. The drawing is in a few days so email Cathers for details or buy it online now.

How to speak about the Emerging Church without sounding like a moron

Next-Wave deserve a special mention for November's incredible array of articles on the emerging church. Sorry for coming late to the party. Very rude of me, especially since they have run my tallskinnykiwi widget to raise funds for next year. THANKS! Charlie's cover story on What Pastors should think about the Emerging Church was a smash hit but there were also other worthy pieces. One of them involves Becky Garrison talking behind my back, as well as many of my English friends, in A Mixed Economy of Church in a Post-Christian Marketplace. And plenty other articles to read there also. In fact, for a pretty well balanced history of the emerging church in USA, glean what you can from the past ten years of Next Wave [can you believe they first interviewed me ten years ago?] and the next time you teach on "What is the Emerging Church?" you wont sound like a moron.

Charlie, there's a seminar title for you - "How to speak about the Emerging Church without sounding like a moron."

Stuff I am reading and watching and thinking about

- The Rise and Fall of Media getting discussed in the blogosphere today.

- A friend is looking for the full version of Rich Mullins - Homeless Man video for me. Short versions on youtube. Worth Watching.

- DELIGHTED to see my wife and kids give some polish to our family's Jonesberries.com travel blog.

- Watching my last twitter get retweeted. I thought it was funny too. Here it is:

"Tz mrcy all, imnz & free, 4 OMG it fnd out me. (If Charles Wesley could Twitter, No. 1)"

- Still deciding if my wife and I should sign the Manhattan Declaration. We agree with it in principle but are not sure what message it gives by the act of signing it.

- We played Keith Green's video Asleep in the Light (1982) after a conversation about the tragically unconscious state of the church, especially when it comes to passing on the good news. Everyone should watch the Keith Green story on youtube. Really.

- Cant believe my friend Shane Claiborne appeared on Esquire because he is one the worst dressed guys I know - he insists on making his own clothes and it shows - but then what do I know about fashion? And he is speaking about more than fashion so there . . . HT: Mark P

- Just heard from a faith-based Foundation that they would match donations from other Foundations towards our mission projects around Europe next year. Great news!!!! Now to find them.

- Big thing this week for us is hosting Rock on Christmas festival. We finished painting the warehouse yesterday. We got the warehouse for nothing but it needed a lot of work. Photos at  Jonesberries.

- Reading through Genesis and Hebrews, chasing down the idea of church and God's temple of living stones as it relates to Jacob's standing stone at Bethel, and the 12 standing stones that Moses erected. I think our ecclesiology would be a lot different if we started reading Hebrews and then went over to Acts to see it played out, rather than starting with Acts and being dumbfounded by Hebrews.

- I am cranking up my Arkaos VJ 3.5 software for this weekend's festival. 90 minutes of video. Some of it we are filming around this city and mixing it up for transitions and eye candy, as well as introductions to the bands. Unfortunately, I am having a problem when it goes to full screen. Must be time to upgrade.

3 Things the Emerging Church Took From the Catholics

What did the Roman Catholics ever do for the Emerging Church? Nothing! The EC had to figure it all out by themselves. Over 2 decades of struggle and experimentation and getting laughed at and being misunderstood.

Actually, thats not quite true. A few things come to mind. And since I promised last week to mention the Catholics and the emerging church, here are 3 things the Emerging Church took from the Catholics:

1 The Catholics coined the term "emerging church"

The phrase "emerging church" as well as "emergent church" appeared in Catholic literature more frequently than in Protestant writings in the first half of the last century. It often referred to the first centuries of the Christian church but occasionally it pointed to the new "younger" expressions of church rising up on the mission field. By the 1960's writers were using it to describe new church expressions in the Western world. Some of these churches also embraced an "emergent theology" referring to the "theology from the underside of history" (Torres and Fabella).

"The mature Christian of the future will not belong primarily to a Christian denomination: he will belong to a community of people who believe in the Christian interpretation of life." from The Emerging Church, by William Kalt and Ronald Wilkins (Catholic writers), published June 5, 1968, page 230. I blogged that quote here.

Apart from a number of Catholic books on the emerging church from the 60's and 70's that sit on my shelf, by far the most prophetic book is "The Emergent Church: The Future of Christianity in a Postbourgeois World" by Catholic scholar Johann Baptist Metz (English edition, 1981). I have referred to this book a few times over the years, especially in Germany to emerging church networks there. Metz did not coin the word, despite what Wikipedia says, but he did bring it back into circulation and use it in reference to the Western world. In his book, Metz predicts a New Reformation of senses for Protestants, of grace for Catholics, and of a new kind of justice for politics. The emergent church will spring up from the grassroots, he argues, not from the middle class. Which, as I have said before, has already happened.

2 The Catholics demonstrated church in a house

Its a revolutionary idea, well . . . unless you consider the first three hundred years of church history, but we Protestants were inspired to do house church from the Catholics. Let me play it out. The current global emerging house church movement is a less cheesy outgrowth of the house church movement of the 1970's, which was precedented by the experimental house churches of the 1950's. Donald Allen, writes in 1972, "Of all subsequent house church developments in England the most notable has been the oft-cited work of E. W. Southcott as vicar of Halton Parish in Leeds." And if you are lucky enough to find Southcott's book "The Parish Comes Alive" (1956), which, being the geek I am, managed to do just that, you will discover that the main inspiration for his network of 12 house churches were the Franciscans who were doing house church in the 1940's in Belgium and France. Chalk up another for the Catholics.

3 The Catholics inspired church in a pub

Or church in a coffee house. Or a club. Or quite a number of "third spaces", "secular" or culturally "neutral" environments. The emerging church movement has made these third spaces kosher for churches and missions of all stripes. But there were already ministries in pubs and coffee houses in the 1960's, although lacking in a robust ecclesiology. One of the earliest examples of protestant "church in a pub" was at Soho, London, in 1955, where Rev. Tony Reid took his parish to the people. Father Patrick McLaughlin gave permission for this experimental fresh expression of church after seeing the church involved in social action in Brussels in the 1930's. Another one for the Catholics. You could almost say that the emerging church sprouted out of Brussels . . . . um . . . hmmm . .

But apart from these things, what did the Roman Catholics ever do for the emerging church? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING!

catholics

Who's Got the Skinny?

DJ Chaung has the skinny on the Deadly Viper controversy with his post called Asian Americans dont look or think alike. Also read Eugene Cho's letter to Zondervan and the authors of the book that is now pulled off the shelves.

Khayna blog has the skinny on at the ecclesiology of Father Daniel Syosyev, murdered last week in Russia, with The Church as the Liberated Zone

The Michael Knight Trust: I want to worship

It occurred to me, after reading Bob's account of the first thanksgiving, that hardship was the context in which the first thanksgiving celebration was birthed. This sheds some light on today's launch of the Michael Knight Trust. Michael was 18 when he passed forward earlier this year. He was the son of my friends Mark "Dosser" Knight and his wife Kathy. We were on the MV Logos together about 24 years ago.

The passing of their son has really impacted me. Michael was born a week earlier than our son, Samuel. The Michael Knight Trust Fund will support the training of worship musicians. Go pay a visit and leave a bid at the auction of the Gibson Les Paul Classic guitar that was donated to the Trust.

Happy Thanksgiving

The biggest Thanksgiving turkey we ever had was 33 pounds (15 kilos) which just squeezed into our double oven. We served 45 people that day, in our home in Portland, Oregon. I was the chef, of course, which means that I took all the credit for the entire meal which was, to be honest, composed of many other food items that my wife had made - sweet potato souffle with marshmellow, jello salads, pumpkin pie - but he who cooks and carves the turkey wears the crown. Just the way it is.

We invited a lot of international students who wanted a real American thanksgiving. It didn't matter that I was a New Zealander. A number of Muslims joined us. Also a Buddhist priest that I had to pick up at his temple. We all went round in a large circle giving thanks for what God had done for us. It took a while. It was a big happy memorable day. Hope you have the same today. We are having a slow and kind Thanksgiving here in Portugal.

For those of you outside USA, who only know of Thanksgiving from old episodes of Happy Days, Bob Beltz has an informative article on the history of Thanksgiving. And thanks to CG Grant and Co for sending me a nice Thanksgiving letter and this animated GIF that I appropriated.

Joining the Redumptancy Club

eek! I wrote this post, published it and then WOPPP it was gone! Dang. Let me try to write something similar.

This morning I received a letter from my employer, Church Mission Society. There have been some massive cut-backs recently due to the financial downturn, but I have managed successfully to avoid them - not bad for the new guy on the block and for a Baptist who is unconvincingly Anglican. But the crisis has caught with me and today I received an apologetic letter saying that I have been made redundant effective February 2010.

REDUNDANT!! . . . AHHH!!! . . WHY ME?? . . .WHY???

Actually, it was no surprise. They had informed me a while ago, in a sensitive, almost painfully apologetic way that only the English can pull off. In fact, CMS have been overwhelmingly supportive and are pursuing ways that will enable us to continue our partnership in ministry, but with us raising the support from people and not them. "Mission Partner" is the name for it. In some ways, we had already starting this a few months ago when the other half of our funding fell through - another sob story that i won't lay on you the day before Thanksgiving. Those of you who receive our email have the skinny on how to support us with more than prayer.

Anyway. Its a hard thing to receive a redundancy letter, despite how nice your employer has been about it. Its like getting dumped by a girlfriend. Its a blow to your ego. It whispers insulting challenges to your accomplishments, It highlights the 'dunce' part of 'redundancy' when you say the word too many times in the same sentence.

But on the positive side, I have coined a new word: "Redumptancy"

And not only this, but I have also empathetically joined the ranks of others in The Redumptancy Club who have, like me, become victims of this world-famous recession. We share in the same disappointment of lost security, a fresh wave of personal humility, a similar journey of faith into dependance on God and the bubbling exhilaration of anticipating the new opportunity around the corner.

God loves corners. We should not avoid them.

God speaks to people in transitions. We should not fear them.

If you ask me "What changes will you make?" I can only say that, since God provides and has provided all we have needed for the past 25 years of mission service, we will continue to seek and equip young leaders around the world to fulfill the Great Commission. Because of the financial downturn, we have already made drastic cuts in our lifestyle, have already replaced the car with bikes, have already reduced our budget to a barebones level, and now run a pretty tight ship - or in this case, a truck. The next step is not cutting back more but getting more support from more partners. I think.

Who else has become a recent member of The Redumptancy Club? Should we lift each other into the next chapter?

OK - that is pretty much what i wrote. I am sure the original was more eloquent and appreciative of CMS - who have been wonderful bedfellows these past 3.6 years - but that's it. Now you have the skinny.

Catholics and the Emerging Church

The Catholic website New Advent sent me a tidal wave of traffic this week with a link to my post "How to estimate church attendance". THANKS! And thats not all. The Catholics are making themselves felt all over the emerging church blogosphere right now:

- Patrick Keenan is running a series called In Search of the Emerging Church on the National Catholic Reporter.

- Cathlimergent introduces itself all over twitter [@Cathlimergent] as a new social network for Catholics exploring emerging church.

- This Fragile Tent generates response with this morning's post "Where are all the Emerging Catholics?" Where are they? Well, you will no doubt point to Emergent Catholics, Alan Creech, and a mountain of other Catholic bloggers and emerging church people.

Marko on the Sale of Youth Specialties

"I still think this whole thing is, potentially, a win for everyone."

writes Marko from his new downsized desk in the family room, on the acquisition of Youth Specialties by Youth Works. Bloggers are chiming in around the blogosphere, esp after the new announcement at the National Youth Workers Convention this week. For the skinny on Youth Works and President Paul Bertelson, go to Tony Jones who was one of the founders.

I enjoyed meeting Yac when he ran Youth Specialites, and I enjoyed my times with Marko over the years, which almost always included smoking a cigar [Marko seems to have a bottomless stash of them]. And I do hope, Marko, whatever organization you end up in, that we will have more stogie-fellowship in the future.

marko, youth specialties

A Slow and Kind Thanksgiving

We are walking over to a local farm today to pick up our turkey for tomorrow's Thanksgiving day celebrations. Once again I am happy to report that our celebration will be slow and kind, as well as compassionate, local and free. And it will be a day of good friends and thanksgiving for all God has done for us. Hope you have a great day also.

Related: Grace to Ewe: Our cruelty-free diet

thanksgiving

Tall Skinny Widget

Special thanks to Bill Kinnon for creating the tall skinny widget on my right column to help us raise funds for our family and team. Yes, our team is now 9 people and your support will help us bring training and resources into 25 countries around Europe and North Africa over the next year.

Bill interviewed me for a video when I was in Montreal and he managed to integrate it into the widget. What a geek!! Thanks! And also thanks to those of you who responded to our appeal after our loss of funding. Because of you, we raised the first ten percent 10% [$3000) which has already helped us get back on the road. And now, the other 90% . . . . Let me know if you place the tall skinny widget on your blog so I can do something nice for you. Like ... not slam your book when it gets published.

I had no idea he was a 5-point Calvinist!

Eddie Eddings comes up with his best Calvinst cartoon to date.

Related: Why I am not a New Calvinist (by one guy who should be)

Mission Ship MV Doulos will stop sailing

The famous missionary ship MV Doulos will cease operations at the end of this year. This is a great pity but understandable given the age of the ship - its the world's oldest ocean-going passenger ship.

"“We recognise God’s faithfulness through these 32 years of wonderful service of the ‘servant’—Doulos — as an outstanding OM ministry, through more than 600 port visits in over 100 countries. Many lives have been transformed, both visitors and those who have served on board." CEO Peter Nicoll, Doulos Updates

I was last on the MV Doulos in Perth, Western Australia. So many memories. Such a great ministry. This will be devasting news for many.

HT: My dear friend John Satterly, who joined OM Ships the same time I did (MV Logos, 1985) and now gives leadership to the MV Doulos at the HQ in Mosbach, Germany, emailed this morning.

John writes: "Dear friends,It is with shock and sadness we pass on news about the Doulos.We need your PRAYERS for the many hundreds of people personally affected and for all the major decisions that now need to be faced very quickly".

doulos, operation mobilization

How to estimate church attendence

It's a complex thing to measure church attendance but here are a few pointers on arriving at an accurate number based on the attendance figures they give you.

- 50% if its a Pentecostal worship service because they count the legs and forget to divide by two.

- 30% if its a Baptist church because they count members on the roll and not all of them are still living.

+ 10 if its a Vineyard service because those rugs on the floor were actually people!

Rockin' Western Europe's Poorest City

Only 2 weeks until our Rock on Christmas Festival happens down in Olhão , Portugal. They say it is the poorest city in Western Europe. Olhão has been a city based on the fishing industry. There was, until recently, 97 fishing businesses in Olhão, that sustained its economy. But that number has been reduced down to 2. Thats 2 instead of 97. Can you imagine?

Needless to say, unemployment is everywhere and the problems that come with it.

But we are going to ROCK the city of Olhão this Christmas. 9 bands have donated their time and resources to come down for this for-benefit concert, making it affordable (8 "rocks" or 8 euros for the whole weekend) and opening up doors for urban transformation. THANKS to the bands!! You guys rock! And kudos to Denny Hurst who is making it all happen, and to his church back in Penn State for their support [more churches are needed to support the Hurst family btw]. Also kudos to local church pastors who are getting the word out this weekend to their congregations.

We got the posters yesterday. But we still don't have electricity at the warehouse. Anyone else wanna come down? Fly to Faro (really cheap on easy jet) and turn south. Olhão butts up to Faro like two cheeks of a . . . doesn't matter - its right next to it. We are setting up a campsite to make it all affordable for everyone. Bring a tent. And ear plugs.

6 More Types of House Church

The last post on why you can no longer ignore the emerging house church movement generated a few comments regarding the actual size of the movement and how it is estimated. Thanks everyone for your thoughts. I realize the movement is difficult to see, as I have written about before. The article was written by Wolfgang Simson who was one of the key people at last weeks Global House Church Summit in Delhi, attended by 200 participants from 40 countries.

What about those numbers? Is it really that big? Who did the research? Wolfgang and I have chatted on email and he yesterday he wrote down some thoughts which I will blog here. Bold fonts were added by me.

Another Six Pack of House Churches

by Wolfgang Simson

Many underestimate the number of house churches greatly because of a limiting box they could be put into. There are not only those nice, easily counteable house churches (hc’s) out there, some of whom even have web sites! In addition to organized house churches, some of them resourced by 5-fold ministries, there are at least six more groups:

1 Off-the-grid house churches that intentionally do not want to be known, listed or be on anybody's radar. We find out about them by accident or through opinion polling or sampling, the kind of research George Barna does.

These OoCC (out of Church Christians) gatherings contain a lot of the God-yes-church-no crowd out there.

2 Business groups, either house churches within a company or those connecting folks in the business world. This number is huge but hard to track as many business folks believe it’s nobodies business whether they hang out with witches, freemasons or create or join their by invitations-only organic churches for support.