Filed under: ministry

Best of 2010: Ministry Happenings

As long as I'm listing some of my faves from 2010 I should get serious and include some of our more significant ministry events as well, right?  For those who don't know, we're members of InnerCHANGE, an urban order among the poor. I currently direct and coordinate much of our internal member development and training, plus help coach some of the new teams IC is seeing launched around the world. All in all it's been a fun year with some great moments along the way!  Let me pull back the curtain and share a few with you.

In chronological order . . .

1) Launching the Sub-merge Course (January)

Late last year our team decided we wanted to take another step in developing many of the relationships we’ve cultivated locally in London through our church networks by leveraging one of our internal training resources: Sub-merge.  John wrote the book back in 2006 and I developed a study-guide for our summer interns in 2007.  So we revamped the study guide and launched a 13 week course for some of the people we knew who wanted to go further in intentional incarnational living in our community.  The launch day was a blast and the course went really well - with several people asking us for more at the end of it.  All in all, a success!

2) Leaders Community London (March)

Every year InnerCHANGE leaders from around the world gather to share learning, swap stories and just generally appreciate and affirm the challenges of leadership in our complex urban settings.  It’s always a great time - and this year London has the privilege of hosting the crew (almost 30 of them!) on our soil for almost a week.  We packed out the living quarters and kitchens of a nearby church with some hospitality space, and we romped all over Stepney, Shadwell and Spitalfields exploring how context influences our mission and ministry.  It’s always fun coordinating these things; but having everybody come see our neighborhood this time made it extra special.  (Pictures by Paul Nix!)

3) Together For the Gospel 2010 (April)

In April I accepted the invite of a pastor friend of mine who wanted to go to T4G: a gathering of several thousand Reformed (leaning) pastors in Louisville, Kentucky.  I managed to rope a couple other IC guys into it with the hopes of quietly infiltrating the ranks of our pastor friends and seasoning discussions with a missional voice from the margins.  I’m not so sure that ended up happening all that much, but the surprise of it was how much we enjoyed ourselves.  It was pretty much a banquet of meaty-sermon after meaty-sermon all day for nearly three days - that and they must have given out about thirty free books to every participant.  I should have taken an extra suitcase!  Though it had been a long time since I was in a large room full of white, middle-aged men (a bit scary after you’ve lived out of the US for a while), overall it was great conference and I came away with a lot to chew on.  If you’re interested, check out the website.  You can watch or listen to all the talks here.

4) CRM Staff Conference - Malaysia (July)

CRM gathers all of its staff together every four years for a world-wide conference of like-minded practitioners.  This year's conference was in Malaysia on a small island that just happened to be both affordable and stunningly beautiful.  We took our whole family and had an absolutely incredible time. The kids loved swimming in the pool, seeing their IC friends, and being in their kids programs.  And us adults had a really refreshing and spiritually renewing time sitting under some incredibly powerful teaching and prayer ministries.  In short, God really moved among us and many, including ourselves, were powerfully ministered to. I could say tons more, but our family pictures tell the rest of the story.  (Recap video courtesy of CRM's awesome Creative Services team)

5) Living Mission Launch - (September)

That’s right - I spent a chunk of 2009 and early 2010 completing a chapter for a collaborative publication put out by the New Friars and Scott Bessenecker.  Take a look at it if you haven’t already . . . I’m really pleased with how it turned out!  Several of us from InnerCHANGE came together with other like-minded organizations to identify the key distinguishing marks of a new global movement of incarnational work among the poor. This book is the result.  The collaborative writing process was really fun, and actually the whole thing reminded me just how much I enjoy writing, particularly for an audience!  I'd love to hear your feedback if you can get your hands on a copy and get the chance to read it.

6) Boston Exploration - (October/November)

I had the privilege of helping “midwife” the birth of a new IC team this year - pioneered by some friends who have had a several year relationship with InnerCHANGE and actually connect back to some of Pam’s early Boston days.  This young couple been doing some amazing work among Boston’s homeless youth scene for a number of years now, and have officially come on with InnerCHANGE in this past year to develop ministry in the Cambridge are of Harvard Square. Trust me, it’s a huge gain for IC!  More than that, it’s pretty sweet to see some of Pam’s hopes and dreams for her (almost) hometown continuing to bear fruit.  I was reminded again of how much I enjoy the “apostle” role of visiting and shepherding leaders on the field who are laboring hard for the Kingdom.

I guess that about sums it up.  Yeah, that’s not much personal/family stuff (or much of our local events in London, which I don't tend to write as much about in public forums on the interwebs) - so those thoughts are for another day and time.  Hopefully you get a sense of what kinds of things we’ve been up to and how much we enjoy getting to do it!

While I'm at it, you can always hear more from us by joining our mailing list, and you can give online in support of CRM's work in London by clicking here.  Thanks!

 

 

1 of 1
Posterous theme by Cory Watilo