Tonight was one of those bitter sweet nights (there’s been lots of those lately). I, along with my friends Chris & Nick, wrapped up a year long experiment with 3rd Place. The experiment was asking the question “how do we translate Nieu Communities DNA into a local faith community… and then how can that faith community’s DNA be translated into us at Nieu Communities?” A cross pollination experiment. So how’d it go?
I’d have to say, I think it went really well. We learned a LOT. We got a LOT wrong in the process (that’s how we learn though), and I think both communities are richer for the experience. I’d like to share with you a little more here about how we wrapped it up tonight.
We spoke about being a community that asks itself hard questions about how it engages the world. A “contemplative community” if you will, not only asks hard questions, it wrestles for tangible ways to live out responses. In other words, it’s not good enough to ask “how can we be a community that brings reconciliation to our world?” We need to ask “what will we do in the next 24 hours, the next week, month, year to bring about reconciliation in our world.” Coupled with the question asking is the accountability question. We must do what we say we ought to do, or we lack the integrity mandated by Christ for His bride! The questions must lead us to intentionality… and I’m starting to think that intentionality is the fuel for missionality.
may all the communities of Jesus gain a contemplative posture towards intentionality!
There’s this saying that God is a God of order not of chaos. I still believe that, but I want to define my terms a little more tightly. What I think most of us mean by “order” is control, and what most of us mean by “chaos” is disorder that God is missing in. So here’s why this post exists…
Life has felt pretty chaotic for our community the last two weeks. We’re all feeling it! In the midst of that feeling, I feel like God’s been speaking some deep things into us that I got to share briefly with our team today. I think our tendency in times like this is to see God as missing. But how many times in scripture do we see God speak new life out of the depths of the chaos? Answer… I think every time we see chaos in scripture it’s followed by some kind of new movement, new birth, new life!
So that’s what God’s doing in South Africa with our community right now. Reality check: it’s chaotic to move a team, a ministry, and a focus all at once. It’s also chaotic to have a baby, take on a new role, and move all at once (and top that off with it being outside our normal culture of America!!!). Trust me, we’re ALL feeling it! But where God’s been speaking in the deep part of my heart this week has been this:
“DO NOT move towards taking control of things and sorting it out in your own ways and timing. WAIT on me… look at what I’m doing under the surface here. I’m up to something and you don’t have all the pieces yet. JUST listen for what to do tomorrow.”
There’s some sweet peace and rest in that my friends. Hang onto your surf boards, we’re catching a wave… all our part requires is balance, focus, and patience on the process. May we all lean into the voice of God together… discern His calling as one and lean into the places that He directs us… especially when they look hard and out of our range. God works in those places and births new things all the time.
A Strategic Move
For some time, and from many people throughout CRM, we have come to feel God is calling us out of the Northern part of the city and more towards the heart of it. This is going to be a long process of praying together as a community and looking at neighborhoods that will help us accomplish our mission more effectively. One of the keys to this for us is to be in a neighborhood where many of the cultures of South Africa come together in one place. Please pray with us as we begin identifying that location!
A New Role
Rob came to Natalie and I this past week and told us he felt that God has prepared her and I to take the lead of the community. That’s quite a task which has left me feeling quite humble. It’s interesting though, because I feel like up to this point, I’ve been able to operate pretty well in myself and get quite a lot of things accomplished. As Rob shared with us, I felt this overwhelming sensation that there’s not way I can do THIS on my own. It has truly shaped my prayer life and how I have interacted with everyone who will be remaining on. I really believe God has a big vision for our community here. Bigger than I can do on my own. Bigger than we can do on our own as a community. So now we press into the fullness of God and ask Him to reveal the steps we must walk… one day at a time… in sync with His lead and in step with one another.
Clarity of Our Mission
Over the past two weeks, Rob Yackley, the founder and director of Nieu Communities (the division in CRM we work with) has been in town. In many ways, I don’t think any of us really expected to get as much done as happened these last several days.
It all started with a 3 day retreat. During that time, God really really showed up. We looked back at our past as a ministry and got some real clarity from God about how to draw closer as a community both to the heart of God and to one another. That was pretty critical! We really began to find some places of healing!
But that wasn’t all. We also came away with some critical changes we feel God has brought to us. Here they are!
Refocused Audience
We are a mentoring and sending community for South Africans. Our goal is to mentor and send South Africans into specific missional leadership functions in their home contexts. Moving in this way changes some things for us. First, we will change HOW we recruit Americans and other ex-pats. They will now come to help us accomplish our mission here. This also leads us towards setting up South African leadership and handing it off. Natalie and I were REAL keen about that (it’s a pretty high value in our understanding of overseas mission).
Cornerstone of Community
We absolutely MUST find a healthy rhythm as a community. We believe God has called us to be a mentoring and sending COMMUNITY. We believe God has wired us as a ministry to do this best through the context of inviting people to join our communal rhythm. This demands more initiative on our parts to be intentional about developing strong friendships with our neighbors and those we are partnering with in ministries around the city.
I realize I’ve been very ambiguous on this blog lately… and spotty in posts as well. The director of Nieu Communities has been in town for almost 2 weeks now. We had an amazing retreat with him as we sorted out quite a bit of things from our past as we begin to look towards our future. I wanted to make sure I put this note out tonight, however, for our regular readers:
Things are incredibly coming together. Things are coming together faster than we thought they would. God is speaking in PROFOUND ways in our community and moving and shaking the scene. We really believe that what God has been speaking is both timely and profound and will take us into a very deep and rich season of ministry here in South Africa.
There are still some pieces that need to be discussed this week, but as soon as they become more clear, we will be posting that stuff on this blog. Please continue to pray with us as we seek the face and presence of God in this pivotal time here.
Tonight we hosted quite the event for our friends Bryan & Daleen. They have been a huge source of comfort and help for us in the last year as we’ve transitioned our family over here. Tonight we said farewell as they move to what God has for them next.
I’m not good at saying farewell, and we’re really only just beginning that process as our apprentices leave as well as some other CRM folks who have been with us leave at the end of the year. Community is hard. You get close, you get transformed, you say goodbye, you say welcome… all in one breath. I wouldn’t trade this for the world.
As hard as these moments are, I still believe deeply that God intends for us to live and work out of intentional community. Hearts are transformed and healed inside of that context. Regardless of the pain of saying farewell, we hold onto the truth that we will say hello soon enough! God has these seasons and these people for all of us, to shape us, to mold us, and to help us become more like Him.
Until the next hello, farewell my dear sweet friends. Bryan and Daleen, God used you in deep, significant ways in our hearts. Your legacy will continue on in us. God bless you immensely in your next chapter.
Friday afternoon, I (Joe) had a really great meeting with our friend Maxie (who is the director of Pure Hope) and a chap named Deon (who is the head of business development for Pretoria University). We were discussing some of the tangible pieces each partner will bring to the table next year to implement a community development multiplication effort (that’s the easiest way I’ve found to describe this so far!!!). It was a good meeting.
Basically, next year, there’s a very limited budget for us to work with, but they have asked me to lay out their entire training program with budget points so that during the course of the year, they can begin pitching the ideas to various donors in the area. (In South Africa, businesses are required to give a certain percentage of profit to non-profit organizations). So as the year unfolds, they can be getting hard cash for the development of area communities (like Mabopane in our latest video update).
Along with this, I’ll be continuing work with the local leaders at uncovering what specific needs there are in the specific locations we will be placing teams. This will inform some of our training as well. This is where it gets really neat. The University wants the training we do to offer students a certificate or an accreditation. That means they may have to take specialized courses from the University during the course of the year as well. The sweet part though… those courses will be in specific areas we need in communities like Mabopane and will have direct practicum requirements being met through the course of the year.
All this might be a bit confusing in typing (trying to keep it under 300 words). To summarize…
Nat & I are working with a mega-church and a major University to start new missional outreaches around Pretoria (and potentially further reaching in the future). Working with South Africans for South Africa. It’s a long road that awaits us with a LOT of work to be done, but we’re already seeing the fruit begin to form. Can’t wait to tell you more as things unfold!
This is the time of year when the Jacaranda trees of Pretoria bloom their beautiful purple flowers. Every day, it seems the trees produce more flowers than they can hold, and the purple flowers fall to the ground leaving a purple carpet on the city.
But with when the purple flowers fall, so does the energy of the city. I was meeting with several people this week who were all saying the same thing. People are finished for the year! I’ll tell you what’s even more interesting about this time of the year… as we’re entering into our summer months and people in Pretoria are shutting down for the season, I notice how my email box tilts. Usually during June through August, I get very limited correspondence from people in the States, but a whole bunch of stuff from people here. Then around the middle of September, that all shifts! It’s an interesting adjustment in our year! I like the change up!
All this to say though, I wonder why it is that we work ourselves to this point of shutting down. It happens everywhere on the globe. I wonder what life would look like if we really took sabbath seriously… if we really took the life and rhythm of Jesus seriously. I wonder if we’d have these extreme feelings of exhaustion if we paid more attention to all of our cylinders of our lives all the time. Vacation is an important part of refueling our tanks, but I guess I don’t want to get in the habit of living for the weekend or the extended break. What’s the full life look like all year round?
We’re getting into that phase of our kid’s lives where they’re starting to understand who Jesus is. Well, at least Ezra’s getting there. Yesterday at church, he made a cross with red string on it and said, “This is how Jesus died”. Then it somehow turned into a rocket ship. We think this might be his understanding of the ascension! It’s pretty hilarious right now, but so much incredible fun at the same time!
Then last night, I went to pray with Keziah and she interrupted and said, “Hi Jesus, Bye Jesus!” as she pretended to have a phone to her ear. Maybe she doesn’t get the whole thing, but the innocence and excitement on both their faces as they spoke about and to God yesterday filled a spot in our hearts.
Somewhere along the way, I lost that excitement and that creativity. May God grace me with that innocence again this morning. May His creativity refill my soul. And may I remember the privileged it is to co-create with Him here!
This month’s update involves a few key things. First, we briefly describe (and show) what we’ve been busy with. As we’ve written about here, Natalie and I have been working pretty closely with a partner ministry here in SA called Pure Hope. We’re working hard on plans for next year and our big goal for the year is to launch a permanent missionary team (made up of all South Africans) in the township of Mabopane.
We also discussed where we are in terms of funding. Last April, we received a pledge card that put our pledged money at 100% of our total need. However, we have not been receiving 100% of the money pledged. We come in around $500 short of our pledged money every month.
NOW, with that said… we are committing in January to NOT increasing our needed budget. However, with the addition of our third child, we’re going to need help filling in the missing gap or things will get really really tight. If you’d like to join our financial team, please click on the support button on our blog.
For this month’s video update, please see below!!! God bless!
