Yesterday (Tuesday) Peter and I had some good discussions about the general function of the church. The Agape crew is reading together a book called The Forgotten Ways, being a very technical, shall we say, way to explain how the church today should change focus to being very missional. I say technical because the author includes many charts and graphs to demonstrate his points. And I mean lots. It is almost as if someone bet him that he couldn’t write a book about the church and include 100 charts and/or graphs. And then the author took the challenge and destroyed it. In some ways such illustrations help. Anyway, the chapter I read was about incarnational ministry; being a part of the people you are ministering to. Basically this guy says that the church is really good at not doing things that Jesus wanted us to do, like spread the word. The focus today is on drawing people in to church, not going out and reaching them…..as Jesus did. Yes the masses followed Him around, but that is probably because He proved Himself as approachable when He went out of His way to hang out with tax collectors and prostitutes. Generally churches aren’t super great at just randomly drawing people in. Maybe because it feels to the world that we don’t really care.
I once pondered what a church would look like if its focus was discipleship and missions training (after Jesus, of course)……
Helped out with English classes again that night. I helped a lady understand a joke an old man made. We were asking about different kinds of desserts and he said ‘Arizona!’ Desert, dessert. Funny guy. Phil laughed a little and kind of down-played it to keep the class going and then the guy asked if in America we have a sense of humor. We do. Thanks for noticing.
Today the entirety of the Agape team an I met at a coffee place to talk about the book and other ministry things. A half an hour in I get a call from Eli. I completely forgot that we had set a time last week to meet. That time was now. So I left the meeting. I apologized profusely to Eli, who was certainly forgiving…it seemed. No just kidding we were all fine. We went back to the apartment and spent a long time talking about all sorts of things. He knows six languages: Pashtun, Farsi, Dari, Hindi, Italian, and English. He is 19. He looks like he is ten years older. He smokes. And he has seen far too much. In one part of his story we typed today he was in a car with other refugees driving out of a city and cops were diving alongside with guns out the windows. They got away, but the second car didn’t.
We talked about religion-y things, too. I am told he is very Muslim, but I haven’t seen it a whole bunch. He talked about the weirdness and wrongness of the Vatican, which was an open door into what Jesus actually did want from us. So I got to read parts of the Gospel of Luke with him, when Jesus tells His disciples to be servants, not masters. This was pretty rad. I don’t know if he cared that much, but at least he sees that in the Bible Christians aren’t supposed to be extravagant and pompous.
We had some tea (I had to ask him three times) and talked some more then busted out computer and manuscript and he read the new stuff he had written as I typed frantically to get it all down. This was a slow process, but very productive. I was able to ask his meaning of many enigmatic passages where the English words don’t quite portray what he meant….or sometimes anything, for that matter. My task this week is to go through his many pages and make it all make sense. He gave me full liberty to edit, correct, and fill in, change words to make it awesome. That may take some time.
Peter came back from the meeting and made us some pasta; had to ask Eli three times again if he wanted some. That is a cultural thing, by the way, that they generally won’t say yes to something until they are asked three times. He left his manuscript so I also have to try and decipher his chicken scratch and make that make sense to. I can say that because my hand writing is just as ridiculous. His Italian friends thought he was using a different alphabet.
This afternoon I started something I hope to continue and expand in the future days to come. I went out to the train station and spent some time praying over the space where we do ministry and where refugees hang out sometimes. I then went to the soccer field and walked around praying over that area as well. I want these areas to be safe places where we can interact well with the guys. I want to visit the key ministry spots around town. I am shooting for doing this everyday. I don’t know if it will change anything, but I prayed against disruption for Walter’s little Gospel message tonight and the crazies never showed like usual. So I suppose we shall see. I have had the idea for a while now, but this video, among other, bigger Things, pushed me over the edge and into action.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCOY_ChkiX8
I am convinced that prayer does things. The good Father gives good things to those who ask, we are told. Thus I am looking forward to doing a lot of praying with a new ministry in Illinois in a few months. You could be praying for that stuff, too. That would be nice.
We had another gathering for the refugee team; key Agape people and Tim, Rachel, Lindsey, and I. I was asked to share about my life and how I came to be in Rome. It was a long story, but basically boils down to God uses you if you say yes I would like to be used. He did it all and continues to do so. He is very good.
I left early, as I tend to do apparently, to go to the train station. I had some time before Walter and crew arrived to hang out and talk with some friends. It is actually amazing how excited some people get to see me. They offered me food again. They came and sat by me. There were too many of them to talk to in such a short time. Cloning machine, where are you?!
Walter had quite a crowd tonight. About 15 or so guys stayed for at least a large majority of his talk, which was actually a bit longer than usual. But a bunch of them stayed and were asking the translator, once a refugee himself, all sorts of questions. They received copies of the Gospels of Luke and John (two of my favorites, and big winners anyway!) in Farsi. Walter invited them all to a viwing of a movie about Jesus in Farsi. I was sorry to not see many of the guys I know stick around, lose interest and leave, but the man who got his finger removed by the Taliban fun squad stuck around. He had never heard such stories about Jesus before, and was very interested in seeing the film.
One of the Agape team leaders also shared about her life tonight. She said that God spoke to her once and said that He was going to do great things in Rome and it was up to her if she was going to be a part of it. She and her husband have been in Rome for five years come January.
Friends. God is doing great things in Rome.
I am far too blessed that I get to see some small corner of it.
He is doing great things.
and everywhere i go i see You.. 